Which pre for my Zon..........Bartolini or Aguilar???

[g4string]

I am going to be swapping out the guts and pups in my Zon Sonus Custom 5. I talked with Carey @ Nordstrand and it sounds like the Dual Coils are what I am going to go with for the pups. Which leads me to the preamp.

I am very happy with the Bartolini-Basslines combo in my Lakland. It is fat, tight, clear, and very responsive. The Zon is lacking in the upper register zing and overall it sounds like a wet blanket is covering the sound. The Zon doesn't sound bad.........I just think there is room for improvement.

With that........which pre would go with. FWIW, the pups will be installed in parallel.

Thanks!!

[MaHei]

I have just taken the electronics out of my Sonus Custom 6 and installed Big Singles, which I run passive (VBT). They sound great and I am sure the Dual Coils will too. Just make sure you get the right string spacing on the pickups.

[rrr_o_bbb]

How important is control over mids on the bass itself to you? I've found the Aguilar OBP-1 to be my favorite preamp on a good sounding bass (Zon included). If you want mid control, I did like the OBP-3 and Bartolini offering as well. But I tend to eq one primary sound on the preamp/amp, and barely tweak on the bass itself (in fact right now my bass is passive). What I like most about the OBP-1 is that with both bass and treble boosts turned all the way down, there is a clean boost of your bass' natural sound, and with a Zon, that's a good thing. The frequencies Aguilar chose for the OBP-1 are awesome, the lows are punchy, and the highs are not harsh (4 KHz instead of 6.5 KHz, which is what all the others tend to use, sometimes enhancing hiss when slightly boosted)