Washburn xb125 sound problem

[Chinook]

Hi all,

This is my first post, it's sad that it is regarding a bass problem and asking for your advice. But I really need help and hope this great community of bass players can help me.

I need to take a quick decision regarding my bass, an active 5-string Washburn xb125. I've searched these forums and the entire web, and couldn't find any really good info or advices.

I blew out the 15" speaker of my old 160 watt Peavey amp, so I started shopping for a new amp. That's where I noticed my bass had a major sound problem. First, it seems that the pickups and preamp push way too much gain. The sound is distorted and unclear. Second, I have no highs and the lows are not really good either.

I've tried a lot of amps, Ampeg B115t, Line 6 Lowdowns, Eden Nemesis, Peavey 115, Fender Rumble, Roland Cubes, even a 2000$ Marshall set, etc ... and it didn't make it. The only amps I've had some decent results with were a Laney RB4, Warwick Sweet 25.1and Traynor Dynabass 200 because they had a powerful compressor to erase the distorted sound and/or a band EQ doubled with a tweeter to power up the highs and lower the mids (but that made my lows even more crappy). I tested the Roland Cube with the cheapest bass the shop had (under 200$) and it had a sound way way better than my Washburn.

Strings are only a few weeks old, bass neck was adjusted at the same time. Only thing I did after the bass was adjusted is that I lift the strings a bit higher from the frets, because I play hard and it does some fret buzz if the strings are too close to the frets. I've also tried a couple new 9v batteries and different cables. So we're left with the active electronics as the source of the problem. I've opened the bass to check for some bad soldering or rust. Everything seems fine.

For your information, the bass has 3 knobs, one volume for each pickup, and one tone (that doesn't do much).

Now that's were I need advice from experimented bassist and modders. I need to change the pickups and/or the preamp. I'd like to know if anyone had similar sound problems and how they solved it. I don't know which of the pickups or the preamp causes these problems. Should I change both, or try the preamp first as it seems easier to replace ?

I don't want to change the bass because, apart from the electronics, it's really well built and I feel very agile playing it. And it's a gift from my girlfriend, she would kill me If I sell it! I don't want to buy an amp just because it can be tweaked to fit my bass. And it could blow out in a few months just like my old bass amp did because of the crazy output and gain of my active electronics.

Thank you for your advice.