Leap of Faith? Deco Fanfret HB5

[yorks5stringer]

https://www.thomann.de/gb/decorative_guitars_and_basses.html

£280 for a deco.....!

[therealting]

There was a thread about these recently.

http://basschat.co.uk/topic/298163-hb-fan-fret-singlecut-5er/page__fromsearch__1

[kodiakblair]

I dish out members number on the TB Harley Benton owners club and entice folk to swear more as a mod on the Harley Benton form

Only heard from one fella so far who's bought one of these fan fret models. He says the tone is brilliant but he had a wee bit bother with the
neck. The 3 mounting screws on the neck were too tight so he had to slacken them when setting the relief,caused a twist around the 13th fret.
Had a wee bit fret sprout too. Another thing is they are advertised as having through body stringing but none of the first batch have actually been
drilled for it.

With Euro laws saying everything must work out of the box as advertised the no "string through body" option could well be the reason for "deco" status.
Many of us bought 4 string decos acoustic basses labelled " 5 string fretless ".

[alyctes]

It's still there... I guess that's not entirely surprising given the price.

[Bassassin]

Not for that much. You sort of expect a Deko to be about £40, in which case it's worth the gamble that it might have genuine issues. This is only £60 less than a full-price one.

[yorks5stringer]

[quote name='Bassassin' timestamp='1485989695' post='3228411']
Not for that much. You sort of expect a Deko to be about £40, in which case it's worth the gamble that it might have genuine issues. This is only £60 less than a full-price one.
[/quote]
It's really a B stock then...no they're listed at £315

Edited February 2, 2017 by yorks5stringer

[kodiakblair]

I've long thought the deco price reflects the unit cost price to Thomann.

A wee look at Ali Express for Fan fret basses showed none cheaper than £429,standard single cut basses start at £270.
Getting the factory to change machines for a short run of fan fret necks will a bit to the cost.Rondo in the States sell similar
guitars and basses to Thomann,Brice ,Aguilar and Douglas brands. They are asking $400 for the 6 string fan fret and $515
discount sale price for their passive 5 string version.

I notice it says "small number available".Could be the whole first batch,unsellable due to the aforementioned lack of through body holes.

Still at £300 who's going to take a chance ?

[DarkHeart]

I got a B stock one and apart from mega cheap tuners and the odd high fret its a really nice bass (took about 10 minutes to sort out the fret issues), infact im trying to sell my Yamaha trbx 405 now as im virtually playing the HB all the time.

[yorks5stringer]

Notice Thomann say the B Stock has 'warranty' whereas the Deco 'is for decoration only'..still got German DSR to fall back on if it is crap. Seems odd to sell something for so much if it is actually 'for decoration only'