I'm going to have a "at home hands on" comparison to do. It looks like almost the whole Dimension line is discontinued now. The Fender site only shows 2 left, the American Elite in the 4 and 5 string. Everything else including Squire is gone.
In Jan, I bought and American Standard Dimension IV when they were closing out the Ocean Blue color. Being a guitar player and not a bass player, I did not expect to buy an more basses, at least at this time. I wanted a decent bass that would not have me looking for a better one later on, so when this popped up for $700 out the door, I jumped on it w/o hesitation.
Been reading up on the Dimensions post-purchase and am quite happy with what I have.
Now with the closeouts, last week the Squire Deluxe Dimension V (red with maple board) popped up for $200 out the door on a one day sale. A little too hard to resist considering I have 45 days to try it out, and can return it at no cost for a full refund, so I bought it.
It came yesterday. It was double boxed, with the outer shipping box well protecting the inner Fender sealed box. But inside the factory sealed Fender box, the neck end flopped around in the box! Inside, the end of the neck was wrapped, so the bottom line is that there appeared to be no damage whatsoever. But that's no way to ship even a cheap guitar, Fender!
Have not had a chance to plug it in yet, but the first once over left me
very impressed. Beautiful, not too thick, and even glossy finish. In a word, "wow" for first impressions.
This (comparison) will be interesting.
