Well I took the plunge and dropped 8 Benjamins for the VJ4. I at first was disappointed with the sound. As some have described it, it sounded sterile. I would add flat to that. I put new strings on it and only a slight improvement. This is all while playing it solo. Well I played it today to some music pumping through my PA and I was majorly impressed with how well it fits into the mix. I was already impressed with it's incredibly even output but the lack of dynamics and flat tone was not doing it for me. This thing is very smooth sounding with no booming notes anywhere. It strikes me as being very well suited for studio work, needing only minimum compression and eq'ing and I think that the more I play it in my band the more I'm going to love this thing. I'm fairly sure it's the graphite neck that is giving it the smooth, even (and possibly flat) output although the emg electronics are probably a factor. It definitely lacks that kind of piano like tone and tends to make round wound strings sound like flats but for certain applications this is perfect. Anyway thanks for the input. You guys convinced me to take a chance and I feel like I've got a keeper. Btw, there is one with passive bart's on craigslist in the San Francisco bay area. It sounds like it's in mint condition, with Modulus case.....asking $975.
Scratch that.....just checked this morning and it is no longer listed.
