Sterling by Music Man S.U.B. Ray4 Walnut Satin £319

[merello]

Just tried one of these in Merchant City Music!


By God the neck is beautiful! Growly sound and only £319!
WTF is going on with entry levels these days!

[JohnFitzgerald]

I tried that very bass last week.

It's a beaut. Instant Stingray.

Had I not had my head turned by the Spector in CC and bought that, I would definitely have pulled the trigger on this instead.
Their Squier Jazz Fretless is also lovely.

Both were very well set up. This makes such a difference.
The ones in GG were dogs in comparison.

[StephenFerguson]

Error

Edited November 18, 2012 by StephenFerguson

[StephenFerguson]

This is the sterling sub surely and not the original? If it is (and I thought they were matt black only) then this is a steal! # edit I just noticed you said sterling in the post :S the originals kick arse, a mm without the gloss finish, a monster for the price you can find em second hand.

[jaydentaku]

, Incidentally are these cosmetically identical, aside from the badge

[JohnFitzgerald]

To this eye, untrained in Musicman Minutiae, it looked identical.
To my mind, I find the quality / price balance jaw dropping with these.
I Will have one.

[merello]

Wee bit more info. I went in to buy a guitar strap. While in, got talking to them about their move to bigger premises. The guy was playing a maple board Sub MM guitar and showing me the asymmetric neck and laughing at the price to quality ratio! Drifted to what bass amp and guitar amp should my school buy for £500. To test the bass amp he handed me this without me even looking at the headstock. Next thing I'm giving it Tony McLevin and Gail Anne McDorsey and thinking ..'Wow! These MM are really the bees knees!' The guy says, 'Er mate...that's the Sub version!' Utterly astonished! Great buy!

[jaydentaku]

I must admit, I couldn't tell the difference between a sterling and its more expensive brother.

[throwoff]

It's funny these ate getting so much praise. When they first dumped the sub range the industry whispers were the quality was too good and they were taking sales from full fat MM basses. Now the relaunch the brand, even cheaper and people say the same!!

[StephenFerguson]

It's nae quite the same, the build quality and wood grades are different, the original SUBs were us built along side the MMs with identical wood, ident electronics but without the detailing on the knobs and tuners and with a no frills finish...this was supposed to cur costs but it turned out that it didn't to the extent the low price justified. An old SUB IS a MM, the sterling for me is missing something, I've found that QC is varied on models, a wee bit like mim fenders.

[geofio]

Just purchased that bass.

[Machines]

The 5 wasn't so good for me. Tried one at a guitar show ans the body was far too light and it had dreadful neck dive. Sound was great though !

[bigsmokebass]

In my local we have the exact one here too. We've been discussing about if these instruments are coming in from China/Korea/Indonesia this good, where's the next "low budget copies" will come from.

I do admit, I think Ernie Ball have probably supplied them well to make these instruments so good but how long before other companies too?

Considering this bass but not my colour :-/

BSB