there are good rickenbackers out there , it just seems that the better ones are around the1999- 2005/2006 era in modern times, thats im my own experience of course , i have set up around 60 4003 basses for various people, the newer basses tend to have a different sound from what most people would recognise as a rickenbacker tone eg geddy lee/bruce foxton/graeme murray etc, growly piano like tone!!! the new ones just do not sound like my expectation of what a good 4003 should sound like, from 2009 on the bass just sounds mediocre in my opinion. i could pick up any £200 squire bass off the shelf and have a better playing/sounding bass . dont get me wrong i love the sound of rickenbacker basses and i hope this sound/playing problem is limited to me and my experience, the new ones have just horrid E strings, and for a bass costing around £1799 rrp , that thing should be singing out the box, not a bass players nightmare. the ones that i tried would need major set up and even then i dont know if i could get them to sound good, i had a 2011 fireglo and i sat it beside my 1999 jetglo and to look at the basses they were almost the same, i tried to figure out why the jetglo sounded like a true rickenbacker and the fireglo did not . the biggest difference i could feel was in the bass was the neck, it just did not feel of the same construction as the 1999 bass, the 1999 4003 had a sturdier feeling neck also the 1999 was made of a much denser piece of wood. i set up both basses up the same , pickup height etc, action and the rest, i just could not get that bass the fireglo to sound anything like the 1999 jetglo. so something has changed at rickenbacker be it construction or materials. at the end of it all you would have a bass that sounded ok , but i dont want ok!!! i want a rickenbacker sound when i buy a new one. your thoughts please guys??