LeftyJ

Can't speak for @BassAgent, but to me it's interesting how my taste in basses (and guitars mostly) has developed through the years, and it helps me keep track of what I do and don't like in an instrument. That said, there have been instruments in my life which I would appreciate a lot more with the knowledge and musical taste I have developed since selling them. The lovely MrBassman "No Sweat" (by Human Base, based on their BaseX model) I once owned comes to mind, and the fretless Sandberg Bullet 5 I foolishly sold. I don't keep a spreadsheet of any kind. I used to keep pictures of everything in my Photobucket account, but Photobucket has long since deteriorated into a huge money grabbing pain in the a** where you'll exceed your free bandwidth as soon as 3 people have even thought about clicking on any of your pics so I don't use that anymore. There are still a load of pics on my 15 year old PC (that I don't use anymore) and a lot on my phone.

Well put. Their current prices are wild! The JAN2 on my 2003 Streamer LX5 was broken when I bought it (used). It has a plastic JAN3 now which works a treat. My 2002 Streamer LX is an oddball with an original JAN (and no quick-access electronics cover) - I guess lefties were a little behind still.

Very true. In this case my band more or less ceased to exist - so it's not that strange we're not getting the attention we used to. Our only album dates from 2013. The band I currently play with had an interesting problem with their streaming services: their aggregator went bankrupt and ceased all activities - but all the bands they represent are still on Spotify and the likes, except they're not getting paid and they can't remove their music because they need their aggregator to do that for them. The band have tried to take matters into their own hands, and have succeeded with a few streaming services (like Deezer), but Spotify are a pain in the proverbial behind in this matter and won't communicate with these artists directly or take any action to let the artists take back control over their content on Spotify. I think they were with Ledo.

Allegedly he's been doing this for years, and somehow he has managed to stay under the radar for most of this time. I wonder how long he would have been able to keep this up if he hadn't set his bots to such an unbelievably high number of streams. You'd have to be a pretty high-profile artist to get the numbers he was getting. "Taylor Swift... check. Beyoncé... check. Michael... wait. Michael who?" It's a pity a song needs a minimum of 1000 streams per year to gain any revenue at all as of recently. My old band used to get about €100-150 a year from CDbaby from online sales and streams but that's over now.

Assembled in the US, with many parts (including the necks) made in China.

This is nice, and the headstock looks quite a bit better than the tiny paddle on the 4-string!

It's not a bug, it's a feature It's made that way to enable it to be adjustable in height.

Yeah, not really getting the "Hybrid" bit with the Precision. I assumed it would mean it has a Jazz-width neck, but on their website they specify a 42 mm nut width.

The other day someone posted an interesting 1980s Ibanez on Reddit that I'd never seen or heard of before. My first response was "Surely that's a fake, it looks like no other Ibanez I've ever seen!" and I am a bit of an Ibanez nerd. But sure enough, the RB Bronks series was very real, with the RB60 and RB70 both made by Fujigen Gakki solely in 1989. And they're very much medium scale basses! Consider me educated!

Very nice! I think I've mostly seen these with 2-TEK bridges, I don't recall seeing them with the Warwick bridge before. That's interesting!

I hadn't seen it at first, but now that you mention it I do see some small chips here and there. Because the description doesn't mention any ageing I thought it was a regular high gloss finish. Makes sense now!

+1. I've got my pedals daisy-chained to a simple Visual Sound 1-Spot (I think they were forced to rename their company to Truetone these days) and while it works for most of my pedals, some don't like to be connected to a common ground or to a switching power supply. I have yet to invest in a good power supply with isolated outputs.

With a derrière that big, it might just work

Why would they put the active/passive switch in the back? It can be useful having a level-compensated EQ preset at the ready that you can switch back and forth to, but with the switch at the back this is made more difficult. I can't tell from the pic what kind of switch was used, but won't putting it at the back also increase the risk of flipping it by accident? Otherwise cool release! I like the guitar version (Fantomen) a lot too. Obviously borrows a lot from the Gibson RD series, but they have given it a bit of a twist.

Since there's no overhanging fingerboard, I suppose you'll need to rout out the neck pocket so you can set the neck in slightly deeper. Moving the bridge would be easier, but will change the relative positions of the pickups and thereby the tone of the bass, since both pickups will be closer to the bridge. Then again I know a certain guy (he who shan't be named) who makes his neck pockets deeper and lets the bridge overhang off the edge of the butt end of the body without moving the pickups, with no issues...

I agree, they're priced very competitively compared to, for example, the Fender USA offerings. I'm mostly surprised by the vast upcharge for a glossy finish though. I know the configurator doesn't show the option for unaged glossy finishes, but the one at Musik Produktiv does have one and is brand new. It's pretty much my ideal spec, if I were to order one new my choice would be between this or metallic orange. The one I own is finished in matte brownburst with a black pickguard and pau ferro board and it's beautiful, but the weight is quite hefty (it's not exactly light ash)

Yesterday, during one of my regular Reverb trawls, I stumbled upon a brand new lefty Sandberg Lionel at Musik Produktiv in Germany for a whopping €2300. That's almost a full €1000 more than my Lionel cost new in 2023! Now, there are some differences: Mine has a matte finish over ash, the one on offer has a gloss finish (not aged) over alder - Sandberg ONLY offers the matte finishes on ash, and the gloss finishes on alder; Mine has a plain maple headstock, the one on offer matches the body finish; Mine has a pau ferro fingerboard, the one on offer has maple. Both have abalone inlays and black hardware. When I ran it through the configurator, it matched the price of the one offered by Musik Produktiv. I then ran mine through the configurator, and it now costs €1715 instead of the €1400 the previous owner bought it for in 2023. Wow! Is the gloss finish really THAT much more elaborate to apply that it justifies a €600-700 difference in price?

Could be the Ibanez 2389B, which is indeed from the 1970s. Not a shortscale, like the Rickenbacker 4001 it tries to mimic it has a 33 1/4" scale.

That's what happened to me, and I wasn't even looking for one. The danger is real!

Does "Mustang-shaped" count? My Atelier Z Baby Z has Mustang dimensions and the narrow Musicmaster string spacing, but with JJ pickups and active electronics so it's more of a shortscale powerjazz.

Elixir offers some of their sets in extra long scale. Be weary of the ones with a taperwound low B, as its thinner section is probably only useful on basses where they're strung through the bridge and not through the body.

These by no means look old, just a little matted and with too much finish sanded off in places - but the pickguards and hardware still look pristine. Not very convincing, but I've definitely seen worse. Nash comes to mind, they have a tendency of overdoing their relic jobs to a comical degree. Especially the backs (and the necks).

That little streak of gold on the headstock is a nice touch! That looks absolutely killer. Enjoy!

It's not the white wire that caught my eye but this black one: There appears to be some damage to that top black wire, as you say possibly from a soldering iron. Probably just a brush with the outer insulation as you say. A very cool find by all means, and I don't recall seeing one in all-black before!

Neck pickup is possibly fine, but the wiring is a mess. Could be a short circuit at the volume knob, given the messy solder blobs there, and I think I see a damaged wire coming from one of the pickups at the top, near the wiring channel to the pickup routs? If it's just that you're looking at an easy fix to get it back to working condition while keeping everything stock. These are very much all the original Status electronics that it's had since new