NBD (no big deal): Ibanez SR1006 Prestige

This showed up two days early and I'm pretty excited. It's been years since I bought an instrument and over a decade since I've owned a six-string.





My thoughts so far:

The bridge, tuners, and fretwork are sweet. Everything is smooth, accurate, and stable. Nice setup right out of the box -- great intonation, action is a little high but even, nicely radiused, and very playable. Neck feels a tad more chunky than other SRs and BTBs I've played, which may be down to a flattened but slightly boxy profile rather than thickness.

I'm kind of disappointed with the vari-mid EQ. Lots of range but not as usable as I'd hoped. Adjustments are really finicky; the Q on the mids sounds too narrow and easily turns into a nasty resonant peak when boosting, while the highs turn harsh and the lows get pillowy. I have it dialed in now, but it's way too easy to send the tone into no man's land with an accidental knob-brush. Bad news for all the knob brushers out there. The pots are a bit insecure and worn out; minus points for the seller, who didn't mention this issue in his otherwise accurate description. I may replace the preamp, but I'm considering lobotomizing this bass after the manner of my other main players: no preamp, pickups through volume knobs to the jack, tone adjustments handled downstream.

Also it's kind of a boat anchor. I'm not perturbed, but it's heavier and less ergonomic than I was expecting, especially having a similar-vintage SR505. Not uncomfortable, but not optimized for comfort. Perhaps related to this, it feels a little dead; I get less tactile feedback through the body than I'm used to. Maybe that's a good thing: more string vibration for the sound of the instrument and less wasted on my tummy. "Sustain for days", anyone?

Bottom line -- as soon as I got it tuned up, I started writing parts, and that's exactly what I want out of an instrument. Gotta wait for my picky picky custom-gauge strings to show up, and then I'll let it settle in and fine-tune the setup, and then I'll know. But conditionally, I'm really happy with it right now. Anyone else with any experience of this model?

 

Well, thanks man, it's definitely a big deal to me.

 

Neat! This looks really promising, thanks for the recommendation.

 

Sounds like exactly what I was vainly hoping for out of the stock preamp, which unfortunately sounds worse the farther the controls are from the center. Right now I have it set flat and I'm using an EQ pedal for tone tweaking.