| Two completely different animals, both in terms of tone and fit/finish. The SB-2 is impeccable on fit and finish, whereas the Tribute is nice, but still it is a Tribute. The fretwork, sanding, edges, neck contour, etc is not nearly as nice as my SB-2. It's more comparable to today's Squier or MIM Fender stuff, which is to say it's not bad. It's nice and very useable and giggable, and I'm not ashamed of it at all. But side-by-side, the USA SB-2 easily trumps the Tribute.
The L2000/2500 is a very aggressive sounding bass. Lots of snarly tones that are very hard to remove if you don't like them. The series/parallel option gives you two different voicings, one kind of naturally scooped and the other more like a soloed bridge pup but with more bottom. You also have treble and bass controls that are passive, so you can only cut. No boost. You can't custom blend the pickups either. They're either solo'ed or fully blended.
The SB-2 is way different. The neck pup has a very nice Precision tone. Lots of mid-range character just like a P, but with a hotter output. The bridge pup is jazz-like. Blending the two provides a very warm tone unlike the L2000/25000, with just enough snarl to make it cut. The tone mod on my SB-2 is nice in that you can control each pickup individually, even when blended. Cut back the bridge pup to remove some of the single coile snarl. Cut back the neck pup to remove the mid-range grunt of the split coil.
The SB-2 is thumpy but with a cutting edge. Probably a better all around bass IMO because of the pickup configuration. The L2x00 is a very versatile bass also, but becuase of it's always present snarl, it can be accused of being a one trick pony even though it has lots of tonal options. The snarl is always there. When you want that snarl, it's hard to beat. When you want something that's warm and blends more with the rest of the band, the L2000 can be a bit frustrating.
Hope that helps!
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Jason
Last edited by Eublet : 08-06-2008 at 09:42 AM.
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