NBD: Unusual MIJ "Phoenix Phantom Series" Headless P Bass

Well sometimes you can get lucky on facebook marketplace! Scored this for 300 CAD with the original hardcase and warranty tag. The previous owner bought it from a tech and there's been a couple of mods done to it.


From what I know, there is very little information online about this specific brand, especially this bass. Supposedly the "Phoenix" brand was part of the Japanese invasion of the early 80s made by Tokai, and were only marketed in Canada for a couple of short years as a project commissioned by Larry Dimarzio himself to promote his pickups(?).



What I can absolutely verify is that this bass was made in Japan and the pickups are USA made Dimarzio's (DP 121BCU to be exact), any serial numbers, dating information are missing (havent checked under the neck heel/bridge but previous owner said he couldn't find anything).

Overall it plays and sounds great, there's a bit of tonal wiggle room with the series/parallel push/pull switch and the flats currently strung on it sound great! I might change them to rounds sometime in the future but currently its the "p-bass with flats" of the stable. Cosmetically it has seen better days, there's scratches and dings all over the body, nothing serious.

Aside from a NBD post I'm putting this bass out there to see if anybody else has heard/has this brand of instruments.

I've included a bunch more close up pictures for internet archival purposes. (I'll include a picture of the hardcase later)

 

from what I checked out taking it apart, the saddle/intonation screw part comes off, so its similar in theory to a danelectro where you have to adjust the two hex screws on the side to adjust it up and down. I might adjust the relief/action sometime soon since it is a bit high for my tastes

 

the individual saddles can only be adjusted for intonation, but you're able to take out the saddle assembly all together in one piece since the screws are holding it UP, not down

 

Yeah this phoenix is kind of an oddball case, it was more or less an early original version of a bridge that took a page out of steinberger's playbook, but this one does it's own thing especially with the string retaining/tuning assembly

 

The best way I can describe it is that its output is HOT, but the switch makes it sound more like a single coil. It's hard to describe really as the current set of old flats on it don't exactly give a great idea of the pick up's sound. I'll see if I can get some recordings of it done within the next couple of days to give an example. It's a spot on p bass tone to put it simply

 

A bit late, but here is what the hard case looks like, great condition for its age, it's definitely the original one that came with it, personally I was more surprised by the fact that this bass could fit in a cheap strat envelope bag!

 

Aside from the action being a little higher than I'd like it plays fine, even after trying to wrap my head around restringing it, since this is actually my first headless type bass.

 

Don't worry it does, it was similar to what I did when I took off the strings but it's great to know since this is completely different to restringing a "headed" bass