Cheap headless basses.

[UNICORN BASS]

Yeah, bit of a weird set up. Bass/master vol, master tone/low-mid, high-mid/treble. More intuitive than how it's written. No pan knob,a 3 way pick up selector instead.

 

[A9X]

Not specific to the headless, but my experience with a couple of old Hohner basses was positive. Well executed, nice instruments.

I have 3 of the Hohners, 2 B2 and a B2V. And a recent Spirit. The Hohners are excellent, well made reliable and sound good.There are a couple of ergonomic workarounds like strap extenders mentioned in the Headless and Spirit threads. Very easy unless you are completely useless with tools. As I have a Boomerang added to my XL2, I'm simply adding threaded inserts to the back of them as it takes about 10 seconds to swap over and I have 2 aftermarket pivot plates to go on the others.

Not that I'm playing out, but I could easily just take a B2 and B2V and that would cover just about everything I played live in the past. The XL2 was my main, and for most of the time, only bass.

Apart from the pickups, I don't get why the Spirits are talked down so much. There is little in terms of fit and finish between them and I doubt I'd be able to pick it from one of the other B2s blindfolded. At least feel wise. I have another set of active EMG HBSS that I'll probably add to it at some point.

 

[danesdad]

+1 on the Hohners. At least the plank models.

 

[GIBrat51]

I have two Kramer "Dukes". This one is an '81 "Special"; with a Dimarzio "Twin-J" pickup, Gibson-style knobs; and a 3-way switch. A Standard model (I had one, but a friend talked me out of it) had a humbucker of some kind in it; little black knobs; and a 2-way switch, that did whatever a switch usually does to a humbucker. Nice little bass, but IMO, nothing special. Dukes have an aluminum neck, and a walnut body; are fairly heavy for the size (about 8 lbs.); and - for me - balance well on a strap. Although, this one is slightly butt heavy; I have to hold the neck down - just a hair - when I play it. It feels...kinda weird. The two Dukes I have are pretty typical of older Kramers; they bear little or no resemblance to the description in the catalog. The people who actually made them, seem to have been inveterate tinkerers; my two Dukes look the same, but function very differently. The 3-way switch on this one lets me run the pickup as; 1) a humbucker; 2) a Jazz Bass bridge single coil pickup; or 3) a P-Bass split-coil pickup. Which, according to my research, it not the way it's usually supposed to work. Like I said; tinkerers... My other Duke is also a Special; it looks identical, but it's got a 2-way switch, and functions like a Standard one does. The "Twin-J", IMO, is a nicer humbucker than the Standard's 'bucker, though...
Other than that? They use a Schaller 3D-4 bridge, and Schaller guitar tuners at the heel. Looks kind of Rube Goldberg-ish, but it works fine. I have yet to find a short scale string that won't fit them - even with silk at both ends. The one in the picture is wearing GHS Bass Boomers. Oh, yeah; Dukes are 31" scale...
I'm sure there are "Better" Steinberg - shaped headless basses out there, but - I like my Kramers. They're weird; they're funky; they're "Vintage"; and, they're (usually) fairly inexpensive. This one is in beautiful shape - it even has the rubber knee-pad still on it - and the original case is in great shape, too. I paid about $650 for it, but most of them don't have a case any more, and - gotta pay more, 'cause it's a lefty... Right handed ones - even with an OHSC - are almost always cheaper; and, they come in lots of colors, too. If you're a lefty? Your color choice is - you guessed it - Black...