New EBMM Stingray Special Colours and Prices

[Guest]

Thomann has got three different Sterling 5 HHs in powder blue, vintage blue and red and I’m so tempted. The problems with carriage and reclaiming VAT if it needs to be returned put me off, but you hardly ever see this particular model in the UK. Still, I’m a bit intrigued as to what the new colours might be.

[Obra]

If we ignore the prices that are as they are in Europe right now and return to the topic of colors, I have to admit that I much preferred the previous set of colors. 

I had a few favorites like Cruz Teal, Chopper Blue, Charcoal Sparkle and especially an Aqua Sparkle. Unfortunately, I don't like any of the new colors ☹️.

If I pull the trigger on a used one, it would be a Aqua Sparkle 4H.

[Wolverinebass]

Well, it appears that the bods at Ernie Ball have pushed the boat out too far after overindulgence in "Mickey Rooney's Crazy Pills."

£3k is laughable. 2 years ago you could get an HH ash/rosewood from thomann for £1900. They are mental if they think anyone will take that up in decent quantities. They can go and do one as far as I'm concerned. 

[Kev]

10 minutes ago, Wolverinebass said:

Well, it appears that the bods at Ernie Ball have pushed the boat out too far after overindulgence in "Mickey Rooney's Crazy Pills."

£3k is laughable. 2 years ago you could get an HH ash/rosewood from thomann for £1900. They are mental if they think anyone will take that up in decent quantities. They can go and do one as far as I'm concerned. 

I think it just shows contempt for their devoted players who will, undoubtedly, defend and keep buying.

[drTStingray]

2 hours ago, Kev said:

I think it just shows contempt for their devoted players who will, undoubtedly, defend and keep buying.

This is a conclusion you'd reach if you ignore all the other factors referred to in this thread - eg shipping costs increasing by a factor exceeding 500% in some instances - VAT on those increases - people quoting reduced sale price of instruments and even those 20 yrs ago - some accurate prices from 2 yrs ago (and more) are shown in this thread. 

I suspect that as this has been raised on the EBMM forum and a moderator responded, the company is aware of the issue so hopefully will be considering how to reduce the price of these standard instruments to lower than the BFR specials issued in 2020 (Andertons appear to have them priced higher in some instances) 😕

Theyll need to lower the prices for me to partake - having said that I already have two Stingray Specials so don't really need another, nice though some of those colours are (I don't get the moan a couple of posts up about the colours - I for one was heartily pleased to see such a good colour range 2 yrs ago when EBMM updated the Stingray - fantastic basses by the way 👍).  

[Kev]

12 minutes ago, drTStingray said:

This is a conclusion you'd reach if you ignore all the other factors referred to in this thread - eg shipping costs increasing by a factor exceeding 500% in some instances - VAT on those increases - people quoting reduced sale price of instruments and even those 20 yrs ago - some accurate prices from 2 yrs ago (and more) are shown in this thread.

On that basis, presumably we will see identical rises in Europe?  Ill keep an eye out for them, but as already mentioned, other brands will suffer the exact same increases, yet these increases haven't been seen elsewhere, yet.  But we shall see.

I'm not sure why you keep talking about old prices, there have been comments in this thread showing live listings that are still on Andertons now, showing an £800 or so difference older stock and the upcoming stock.  I don't think anything highlights the difference better than that....

[Kev]

Walk me through these two?

https://www.andertons.co.uk/music-man-stingray-dropped-copper-roasted-maple-maple-white-pickguard

£1,899.

https://www.andertons.co.uk/music-man-stingray-special-snowy-night-roasted-maple-maple-matching-headstock-white-pg-chrome-hardware

£2,999.

Bear in mind I have very little knowledge of the current Stingray range, but all I see here are two basses identified as Stingray Specials, in unique finishes, one 2020  (presumably) and the other 2021, and an £1,100 price increase (£900 if you take the price before discount, which would be fairer).

Edited January 25, 2021 by Kev

[Eldon Tyrell]

3 minutes ago, Kev said:

On that basis, presumably we will see identical rises in Europe?  Ill keep an eye out for them, but as already mentioned, other brands will suffer the exact same increases, yet these increases haven't been seen elsewhere, yet.  But we shall see.

Good point. I have dropped Thomann an email, asking for their new Stingray Special prices. Let's see.  

[drTStingray]

@Kev I don't know but I suspect that dropped copper Stingray may be from 2018 - when I bought mine (special order) they had a huge stock of new Stingray Specials and although they'd sold about 10 when I bought mine, there were clearly quite a lot of others there.

I was hoping they'd reduce the BFR Stingray Special fretlesses as I had my eye on one - last time I looked they'd been taken off sale.... 

@Eldon Tyrell let's see what Thomann have to say - that will be useful - however bear in mind the shipping crisis is also very much a UK one (as well as worldwide) - people are shipping to Europe to avoid delays and then trucking across (if they can be bothered to trade owing to the Brexit paperwork - and costs). 

[martthebass]

I had looked at picking up a 4H special in one of the sparkle colours at one point, letting one of my current MMs go to part fund.  Well the current pricing has pretty much done for that.....don't they realise that some of us aren't really gigging quite as often these days?  I'm slightly put off the latest ones as I gather they no longer have the nice light woods that were available when they first came out.  The only thing that slightly niggles on my PDN Ray is the weight and it now looks as if there would be little weight advantage on changing to a new special.

[Kev]

2 hours ago, drTStingray said:

@Kev I don't know but I suspect that dropped copper Stingray may be from 2018 - when I bought mine (special order) they had a huge stock of new Stingray Specials and although they'd sold about 10 when I bought mine, there were clearly quite a lot of others there.

I was hoping they'd reduce the BFR Stingray Special fretlesses as I had my eye on one - last time I looked they'd been taken off sale.... 

@Eldon Tyrell let's see what Thomann have to say - that will be useful - however bear in mind the shipping crisis is also very much a UK one (as well as worldwide) - people are shipping to Europe to avoid delays and then trucking across (if they can be bothered to trade owing to the Brexit paperwork - and costs). 

It appears that Andertons, whilst they do for some instruments, don't put up actual pictures for the Stingrays they stock, with the serial number etc.  So its difficult to tell, but if its still listed on their website, I find it highly unlikely the last time they sold one it was built three years ago.

How about this one https://www.andertons.co.uk/music-man-stingray-charcoal-sparkle-roasted-maple-ebony-black-pickguard

Pretty special looking Stingray in my eyes, available for preorder now but does not appear to be part of the 2021 run as its available sooner, and its £1,999 (not reduced)?

[Chiliwailer]

.

Edited January 25, 2021 by Chiliwailer

[gazhowe]

37 minutes ago, Kev said:

It appears that Andertons, whilst they do for some instruments, don't put up actual pictures for the Stingrays they stock, with the serial number etc.  So its difficult to tell, but if its still listed on their website, I find it highly unlikely the last time they sold one it was built three years ago.

How about this one https://www.andertons.co.uk/music-man-stingray-charcoal-sparkle-roasted-maple-ebony-black-pickguard

Pretty special looking Stingray in my eyes, available for preorder now but does not appear to be part of the 2021 run as its available sooner, and its £1,999 (not reduced)?

That Andertons link (plus others) is quite misleading as it suggests that you can preorder a Special in a colour that Ernie Ball has discontinued, and it certainly wouldn’t be sold at that price even if you could order one. It would make sense for them to change ‘Pre-order’ to ‘No longer available’ if they have none in stock and delete the price as it’s no longer relevant.

FWIW, when I bought my 4H Special in that colour from Andertons (around September 2018) it was £2,199.  

[Eldon Tyrell]

25 minutes ago, gazhowe said:

That Andertons link (plus others) is quite misleading as it suggests that you can preorder a Special in a colour that Ernie Ball has discontinued, and it certainly wouldn’t be sold at that price even if you could order one. It would make sense for them to change ‘Pre-order’ to ‘No longer available’ if they have none in stock and delete the price as it’s no longer relevant.

FWIW, when I bought my 4H Special in that colour from Andertons (around September 2018) it was £2,199.  

Yes, the Andertons website is a bit annoying. For example, it shows 22 Spector basses but when you click on them, you realise that they only have 5 in stock.

Back to EBMM: For us to compare oranges with oranges (instead of apples), the new Stingray Special in black costs £2,749. I bought the same (yes, mine had an ebony FB instead of maple but that should not make much of a price difference, right?) for £2,099 in October 2019 from BD. So, the new price is a whopping £650 higher. 

[OllyW]

On 22/01/2021 at 22:21, Ian McFly said:

I don’t know if a guy called OllyW is here, but he posted on the Ernie Ball forum about the price increase and got roasted by the admin with stupid arguments. 
Yeah, there’s fees, import and shipping cost, blah blah blah... but it has always been the case and I genuinely don’t see what suddenly happened to create more cost for these instruments. No, they’re simply increasing their margin here in the UK, using the increase in the US as an excuse to do the same, just in a silly and ludicrous fashion...

We’re not stupid, we’ve all seen what they did there, and surely, any smart bassist won’t spend 3 grand on an industrial bass like the Stingray. 
For 3 grand, I’m going custom, dude.

Yep, that’s me.

I think you are right, either Ernie Ball or the UK importer has got greedy but I think it’s going to backfire on them and sales are going to dry up with the new high prices. I was expecting an increase of £200-£300 in line with the USA but there’s no justification for the huge pice hike we are getting.

I’m so glad I got hold of my 4HH last year. It’s a great £2K bass but there’s no way I would have gone for it if I had to pay an extra £750 - £1000 on top.

[Guest]

The other thing I noticed is that they don’t have pricing for any 5 HH models. Given the single H ones goes up to £3,149 are we talking £3,300 top whack? Blimey.

[fretmeister]

I just had a quick look at the weights too.

When the Specials came out a big thing was the new lightweight-ness.

And yet a quick look at the few shops that show weights, they seem to be as heavy as the old ones now. Have they run out of lightweight wood?

If the 4 strings are hitting 9-10lb with the lightweight approach then the wood must be heavier than before.

 

There seemed to be plenty of 8lb ones when they launched and a few 7.5lb ones. 

More money and more weight. No thanks.

[Kev]

37 minutes ago, fretmeister said:

I just had a quick look at the weights too.

When the Specials came out a big thing was the new lightweight-ness.

And yet a quick look at the few shops that show weights, they seem to be as heavy as the old ones now. Have they run out of lightweight wood?

If the 4 strings are hitting 9-10lb with the lightweight approach then the wood must be heavier than before.

 

There seemed to be plenty of 8lb ones when they launched and a few 7.5lb ones. 

More money and more weight. No thanks.

Ah, they’re sold by weight then, maybe? 🤔 🤔 

[martthebass]

1 hour ago, fretmeister said:

I just had a quick look at the weights too.

When the Specials came out a big thing was the new lightweight-ness.

And yet a quick look at the few shops that show weights, they seem to be as heavy as the old ones now. Have they run out of lightweight wood?

If the 4 strings are hitting 9-10lb with the lightweight approach then the wood must be heavier than before.

 

There seemed to be plenty of 8lb ones when they launched and a few 7.5lb ones. 

More money and more weight. No thanks.

There's a shortage of swamp ash I believe. 

In the same mind as you, I was considering moving my PDN Ray on to get a lightweight Charcoal sparkle special but there doesn't seem much point now.

I briefly had a 2018 Caprice that was bang on 8lb....looks like they used up all the lightweight wood stock during that period.  

Edited January 27, 2021 by martthebass

[pineweasel]

50 minutes ago, martthebass said:

There's a shortage of swamp ash I believe

This is also the reason there's no natural finish offered, and why almost all the new colours are opaque.

[Kev]

50 minutes ago, pineweasel said:

This is also the reason there's no natural finish offered, and why almost all the new colours are opaque.

Which is usually a sign of a lower grade of wood.

To catch up, we are at heavier, lower quality woods being used than the last runs, and they're being sold for around £800 or more more?

[martthebass]

21 minutes ago, Kev said:

Which is usually a sign of a lower grade of wood.

To catch up, we are at heavier, lower quality woods being used than the last runs, and they're being sold for around £800 or more more?

That's how I see it too Kev.....what was it that John Lydon said?

I love my 2 EBMMs but I don't think I'll be buying a new one anytime soon.

Edited January 27, 2021 by martthebass

[Guest]

37 minutes ago, Kev said:

Which is usually a sign of a lower grade of wood.

To catch up, we are at heavier, lower quality woods being used than the last runs, and they're being sold for around £800 or more more?

More accurately a less attractive grain. The actual tonal quality of the wood is very likely to be no better or worse - I don’t recall exactly but for solid colour models they have used poplar in the past and they use basswood on the Bongo and still sound good? However neither has what you’d call an attractive grain. Even high end custom builders won’t grain/bookmatch wood if it’s getting a solid colour (whatever they tell the customer!)

[Kev]

9 minutes ago, FDC484950 said:

More accurately a less attractive grain. The actual tonal quality of the wood is very likely to be no better or worse - I don’t recall exactly but for solid colour models they have used poplar in the past and they use basswood on the Bongo and still sound good? However neither has what you’d call an attractive grain. Even high end custom builders won’t grain/bookmatch wood if it’s getting a solid colour (whatever they tell the customer!)

Yeah, sorry that's what I mean by lower grade, and wood with less attractive grain is almost always cheaper to buy, and therefore use.

[martthebass]

17 minutes ago, FDC484950 said:

More accurately a less attractive grain. The actual tonal quality of the wood is very likely to be no better or worse - I don’t recall exactly but for solid colour models they have used poplar in the past and they use basswood on the Bongo and still sound good? However neither has what you’d call an attractive grain. Even high end custom builders won’t grain/bookmatch wood if it’s getting a solid colour (whatever they tell the customer!)

I know the spec of my PDN Starry Night Ray is for an Ash body but I wondered why they would go to the bother on a solid colour like that?