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I wish you luck. Join us over here! Zon basses - is everything OK ?
LOL.
He put a buckeye top and knobs on that formerly-cherry-red Sonus... looks like excellent work!
Looks like he was putting a buckeye top and refinishing the red Zon. I did this with a Gibson Tobias years ago.
That red sonus was on my Reverb 'watchlist' for a good long while - interesting to see what happened to it next.
Probably a custom-mod as a customer request. The lutiher in question is in fact rather well-established (esp. his fretless builds are fantastic), so I doubt that he's intentionally manufacturing 'fake Zons' at scale.
Makes sense that it's a customer-requested mod. On the previous page, looks like he put a koa top on a Stingray (or "Stringray", as he spelled it!)
If he was, I don't think he'd be putting it on the internet!
P.S. Possible solution for those who want a custom Zon but don't want to risk an extended wait: maybe you could buy a used 'vanilla' Zon (so to speak), and have this JCR luthier fix it up the way you like.
Of course I have no idea how expensive that would be.
Of course I have no idea how expensive that would be.
Hi gwangi, I think the intonation screws are M3 x 0.5 (metric - 3 mm diameter with 0.5 mm thread spacing), in case you haven't figured it out already.
JuanB thank you for the info, Joe had sent me some saddles and screws a while back but thanks again for the info.
- Dec 21, 2007
- 15,233
- 45,120
- Disclosures
- Lark in the Morning Instructional Videos; Audix Microphones
I got it used. At first glance I thought it was a 519. I much prefer the 34" scale, 17mm spacing. But when I took a closer look at the bridge, I realized it has 17mm spacing so I jumped on it.
So:
Ash Body
Quilted Maple Top, Satin finish
34" scale
17mm spacing
Hum cancelling Barts
Bart Pre
I actually have a gold ZON bridge and tuners so I'm going to put those on and see if I like the look even more.
Good answer, because if it was brand new, there might be some new answers required of you from certain people.
I've spent the last year playing with the electronics in my Legacy Elite trying to get a more/different modern HiFi sound.
I originally swapped the Polyfusion ZP-2DM for an ungrounded balance pot into an Aguilar OBP-3 preamp trying to see if I would get more top end out of the stock Barts. I thought the buffered I put of the OBP would be enough, and it kind of was.
I still wasn't happy and wanted a more open natural top end, so I added a Bartolini dual buffer pre with individual volumes for each pickup and started running everything at 18v. This got me closer and definitely increased the touch response and opened up the mids a bit. I had it like this for about six months, but it still just wasn't quite right.
I started listening to clips of other Bartolini pickup models, pre's, other players Zons, other basses with Barts and different pre's, trying to hear what I wanted out of mine. Most of the basses I liked were either Fodera or something else with a similar dual coil.
The stock pickups are dual coils, and most of the DC pickups all had the same character, just different eq responses, so I looked again at the electronics.
I have experience with Aguilar tube products and know from my own experimentation modding my DB-659 that Dave likes to roll the top end off on his amps above 10k and likes a smoother mid and rounder bottom. The OBP-3 has always been touted as a transparent pre, but I started to wonder and compare to other preamps. Sean Fairchild had the test that proved my point, Noll versus OBP-3. The Noll had a different texture and was more open in my DT-770's than the Aggie.
I then started looking for the most open pre that had 800hz as a mid freq. I cut it short, I settled on the Audere selectable 3-band with dual volumes, using it with the Bart buffer, and running it all at 18v. WHAT A DIFFERENCE!.
The Audere is more quiet and way more open. The top end is exactly what I have been hearing/expected. It is almost like a different bass. All of the baked in tone is gone. Usually graphite has a compressed sound, but even that seems to be gone. The pickups even sound different. I think some of that is due to the true stereo mixing for each pickup channel. Either way I am completely pleased. Fully recommended if you want something completely different.
I originally swapped the Polyfusion ZP-2DM for an ungrounded balance pot into an Aguilar OBP-3 preamp trying to see if I would get more top end out of the stock Barts. I thought the buffered I put of the OBP would be enough, and it kind of was.
I still wasn't happy and wanted a more open natural top end, so I added a Bartolini dual buffer pre with individual volumes for each pickup and started running everything at 18v. This got me closer and definitely increased the touch response and opened up the mids a bit. I had it like this for about six months, but it still just wasn't quite right.
I started listening to clips of other Bartolini pickup models, pre's, other players Zons, other basses with Barts and different pre's, trying to hear what I wanted out of mine. Most of the basses I liked were either Fodera or something else with a similar dual coil.
The stock pickups are dual coils, and most of the DC pickups all had the same character, just different eq responses, so I looked again at the electronics.
I have experience with Aguilar tube products and know from my own experimentation modding my DB-659 that Dave likes to roll the top end off on his amps above 10k and likes a smoother mid and rounder bottom. The OBP-3 has always been touted as a transparent pre, but I started to wonder and compare to other preamps. Sean Fairchild had the test that proved my point, Noll versus OBP-3. The Noll had a different texture and was more open in my DT-770's than the Aggie.
I then started looking for the most open pre that had 800hz as a mid freq. I cut it short, I settled on the Audere selectable 3-band with dual volumes, using it with the Bart buffer, and running it all at 18v. WHAT A DIFFERENCE!.
The Audere is more quiet and way more open. The top end is exactly what I have been hearing/expected. It is almost like a different bass. All of the baked in tone is gone. Usually graphite has a compressed sound, but even that seems to be gone. The pickups even sound different. I think some of that is due to the true stereo mixing for each pickup channel. Either way I am completely pleased. Fully recommended if you want something completely different.
Thanks. I'm seriously considering the 4 band version my self. Do you have the model with the Z-switch? If so, how do you like that?
Think I'm digging the gold hardware more and will leave it that way.
I just got the classic, not the Pro-Z.
I had a four band Pro-Z in a Yamaha RBX-6JM. In that bass I used the Low-Z mode all the time because I wanted growler pickups. In my Zon, I like the general voicing of the Bartolini's, and figured I would probably not use it. I didn't think it was worth the extra $50 dollars for this bass.
If you are covering a multitude of styles that require drastic sound changes (like Dub to Slap) on the fly, the Pro-Z is totally worth it.
