How good are SX basses???...

[rustynuts]

....don't mean to get political but it's bad enough that 1/2 the crap we buy/use (and soon dispose of) in daily life is purchased in support of a brutal dictatorship, but now your bass?....for what?... a few hundred bucks? Pay a little more and get alot more. If this trend continues you'll one day be able to buy your axe at Walmart. Just sayin'.

You can already....Haven't you seen the First Act guitars and basses there? Or Gibson's Maestro brand at the friendly neighborhood Meijer stores?

 

[BassBob185]

No problems with Kurt. I returned my first PJ due to it having problems and he promplty sent me a replacement and refunded my shipping.

Please don't disparage Captin Crunch cereal, I'm collecting more box tops for my next SX FirebirdJazzPJRic-a-tar.

 

[lowend1]

....don't mean to get political but it's bad enough that 1/2 the crap we buy/use (and soon dispose of) in daily life is purchased in support of a brutal dictatorship, but now your bass?....for what?... a few hundred bucks? Pay a little more and get alot more. If this trend continues you'll one day be able to buy your axe at Walmart. Just sayin'.

Also "not to get political", but...
UGH. Tell Gibson, and Fender (and others) to figure out a way to produce an affordable, quality instrument here in the US, and I will buy a bunch. As of now, their base offerings pale in comparison to the SX line. You SHOULD get what you pay for, but sadly, it's not always so - even on the high end.

 

[savit260]

I'm only stating that my experience with Rondo was horrible.

I'm not arguing with anyone who says that they've had a positive experience.

But I am going to call BS when necessary.

Even after I've said something negative about Kurt/Rondo people are still responding, "I've NEVER heard anything bad about Kurt or his service!" Um...

99.4% positive rating or not, Kurt was a complete arse to me. And I bet he'd have a lot more negative feedback if not for the fear of retalitory feedback. He did it to me. Good thing Ebay has since change their feedback policy.

I'll call a little b.s. here too.


Your gripe seems to be that Kurt wouldn't hand select and personaly inspect an instrument for you.

We're talking about a sube $150 instrument here, with a generous return policy.

Who exactly is being the "arse" here?

Do you really expect someone to hand select an instrument for optimum fret work for you at this price point?

If there was a problem with the fretwork, you could return it as "defective" and they'll even eat the return freight.

 

[ProfGumby]

I got my flame proof undies on for this one......

I have 3 SX basses and all are fine instruments. I have an SX Jazz that I had Scott in Dallas do a fretjob on, and I put that above my Squier VM Jazz. Oh and the pickups on my SX basses are hotter than my VM Jazz. Don't get me wrong, I love my Squier, but that SX Jazz is just "it", know what I mean?

As to defending Kurt, he's a big boy and he can defend himself....

I can respect someone's opinion on not liking SX, and they have the right to have their opinion from their experience. No one can please everyone every time. Even Christ didn't do that.

I would buy another SX in a heartbeat!

 

[Eyesee7]

I bought an SX Jazz a few years ago to get back into playing after a 20-year layoff. Since I hadn't played in so long (I had an American-made Fender P back in the day) I didn't have much to compare it with, sound-wise. I thought it was pretty well made for the low price, but wasn't expecting perfection, and it's not perfect.

It sounded fine messing around at home playing it through an Ampeg B-50R amp. I finally aired it out a few months ago on stage playing in a weekend Rush jam. It was running through another bassist's rig; I have no idea what it was as my knowledge of that stuff is nill.

The guy doing the audio recording said my bass was coming through "hot" in the mix, with booming lows and no midrange cutting through at all. Plus, since I couldn't hear myself most of the time on stage between other instruments and the monitor situation, I played very aggressively to try to compensate and there was a lot of clicking noises from the strings slapping the pickups. I had just put new DR Nickels on it also and played with both pickups dimed.

When I heard the audio recordings played back I thought it sounded pretty lousy, dull and thunky with no midrange as he said. He recommended I get a compressor and a pre-amp to compensate. As I said, I really have no knowledge about all this stuff; I'm just offering you my experience in playing my SX in a band situation.

As for Kurt, I note that a LOT of the negative and neutral feedback has to do with placing the order and being told the instrument was out of stock. Thinking back, I'm pretty sure the same thing happened to me but I didn't leave him negative feedback over it, I just re-ordered at a later time.

If nothing else, it allowed me to get back into playing at a low cost, and now I can decide if I want to upgrade to a better bass again, or even if I want to dabble in a short-scale bass because I've had a pretty bad case of hand cramps and pain ever since that weekend of playing Geddy riffs!!!

 

[savit260]

The guy doing the audio recording said my bass was coming through "hot" in the mix, with booming lows and no midrange cutting through at all.

Sounds like your p/u's are adjusted too high, as in too close to the strings.

This is a set up issue, not so much a deficiency with the bass.

I've gigged the hell out of two SX SPB 62's for over 3 years now. Nothin' but compliments from the sound guys I've worked with.

 

[Cthulhu]

Also "not to get political", but...
UGH. Tell Gibson, and Fender (and others) to figure out a way to produce an affordable, quality instrument here in the US, and I will buy a bunch. As of now, their base offerings pale in comparison to the SX line. You SHOULD get what you pay for, but sadly, it's not always so - even on the high end.

I couldn't agree more. Not to get this too off topic, but I do think there is an expectation that if it is "American Made," it carries a premium price, whether the quality merits it or not. I have a tough time believing that an American, mass-produced bass couldn't be made affordable.

Sorry - had to get that off of my chest.

Oh, and I've had the exact same experience with the SX basses. I've had a J-bass that was outstanding and the "LTD" short-scale J-bass that has the strangest, most impossible to diagnose buzz ever. I've had excellent luck with Douglas and Brice, for some reason, although they do cost more. I have a Douglas 6-string that I bought from Rondo that was cheap and is fantastic.

 

[Warpticon]

I love when people blurt out the old, tired and true (no, that's not a typo) "you get what you pay for" line. Have these people ever heard of the law of diminishing returns? I mean, Foderas are damn nice, but there's no way on earth or any other planet you're going to convince me one is 100 times better than my SX based on price, or 200+ times based on waiting time, than my SX. It's not uncommon for cheaper things to be better than more expensive things--that's how a lot of more expensive things end up dropping in price, after all.

 

[Scott in Dallas]

SX basses are as good as the person setting them up and the player playing them, period.