So how come no one ever talks about the 5500's?
Search comes up with nothing...is it cause "they have the wrong pickups?
Same neck and body as a 2500, right?
Just curious...never laid hands on one, I presume they have more of a ''Lakland 55-02 with Barts smooth sound" than the 2500 bark and growl...

I have a 5500, it's a beast. I'm tempted to get another off of ebay. EMGs, to me, are the polar opposite of barts though. It's a rock solid bass, perfect for rock, or (in my case) metal. Punches through two guitars and drums with ease. Though, I'm not thrilled with the sound I get with it through my GK 400RBIV, it's AWESOME through my 400+ , i love it.
I've yet to play a 2500 or 1500 (GASing for each), so I can't compare.

I own one as well I play full time and play Country Rock Blues
some Funk and anything that pays and my L-5500 works for all. I also think this bass cuts through in the mix very well
and sound techs. and recording engineers I have worked with all love the tone of it.
It's a heavy bass but no heavier than any new L-2500 or
Stingray V I've picked up and has the same feel as a 2500.
The only thing I think they left out was a tone control you can set the high freq.of the treble control on the EMG BTC
preamp by going into the control cavity and switching some very tiny rocker switches but I think a regular tone control
would have been a nice touch and theres enough room in the control cavity to add one .
A sweepable mid control might be cool also I spent about $460.00 on my Fender jazz V trying to make it sound like my 5500 and the j-retro's sweepable mid is why that bass became my number 1 instead of my backup bass.
As for the wrong pickups I think it just made more sense cost
wise to go to an in house pickup and when you're talking thousands of units thats alotta loot.
I think L-2500s and L-5500s both sound great I tried both and picked the 5500 for me with all the diffrent gigs I play
and things like bad power, poorly grounded lighting ,generator power ,neon bar signs and poorly located video feeds the EMGs
were the way to go . All the basses I ever owned and I've
owned a few have either had stock fender ,EMGS ,or Barts
I like them all maybe not so much the stock Fender but they all have there place.
As for those people who don't like EMGs tell it to Victor Wooten.
I tried to sell mine at the evil place but I don't think people
realize just how great these basses are so I think I'll just keep
it .
One other thing just came to me once I decided what string gauge I was going to use and after getting my tech. to tune
up the frets not that they needed much but I get them done
almost right away on every bass I own but I don't think the neck on this bass has changed in almost 7 years and it's travelled from Egypt to Dawson City in the Yukon and never been wrenched the only other bass I owned I can say that
abought was my Steinberger .

cheers B.