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Quality vs Quantity?

#101
I would choose one $1500 bass. When you’re in the $300-600 range it’s closer between quality of basses, in my opinion. When you make the jump above the $1200 range it’s a different ball game. I can’t see how people here keep saying that they will out perform a $1500+ bass. Not ever, in my experiences.
And I would choose a G&L, probably a JB or an LB100. I can custom order the neck specs, choose from many color/fretboard combinations and the pickups are killer. So, no reason to mod it up, and passive, so virtually no reason for a backup bass. Although I may have one or two.
 
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#102
If the five $300 basses were well-built lookers and great players with quality tone sufficient to sound good in the mix, I'll take five over one every time. And that pretty much describes most of my collection (I've got a few trophy case basses, but they are the minority). Quality of manufacturing at that lower price point over the years, spread over numerous manufacturers, has resulted in a really blurry line between what a $300 and a $1,500 bass have to offer, especially in terms of real-world application.

And since I consider my basses fashion accessories as well as tools of my trade, five different aesthetics to choose from is icing on the cake.
 
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#106
As usual...it depends. What basses are in question?

Without exception, $300 basses need nut and fret work to be what I call great players. I have never – and I really mean never, quite literally – played one that is up to my standards for nut craftsmanship and fret dressing. If you can't do that tech work yourself, it'll run perhaps $150 at the higher end, or maybe as little as $100 from a cheap tech. You can get a ton of bang for your buck on the lower end $300 instruments...but if we are being honest, they need fret work and a nut to truly be top notch players, with the frets and nut carved and dressed as a "real" guitar builder would. They can play really well stock, and be perfectly acceptable to use...but never "perfect" by my standards.

This is not a knock on cheap instruments; even $1,500 basses need the same work...though probably to a lesser degree most of the time. It's just that when you spend $150 on a $300 instrument, you are spending 50 percent of the instrument's cost. When you do this on a $1,500 instrument, you are spending 10 percent. So the percentage of increase to the total investment is far higher on the cheaper bass.

And both will need strings! Basses almost never come with acceptable strings to me. Let's say $40, for the strings I like (though I think they might be a bit more).

Point being, $300 basses are really almost $500 basses by the time I am done with them, and $1,500 basses are really almost $1,700 basses. So the question becomes, "One $1,700 bass or three-and-two-fifths $500 basses?"

$1,500 isn't THAT much. It doesn't necessarily guarantee "high quality." Personally, I might just opt for the three nicely dressed $500 basses instead. What I'd actually probably do, if I could spend the $1,600–$1,700 any way I wanted, would be to get two $800 basses (probably used G&Ls).
 
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#108
smcd said:
Depends what those $300 basses are. 9 of the 10 basses in the photo below cost me $300 or less. They all play and sound as good as or better than any $1,500 bass you can buy today. In fact I can't think of a single new bass in the $1,500 price range that I would trade any one of them for.

View attachment 3307861
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Here you are mentioning something very interesting. Yes they can outbeat a Fender MIM 900$ and Ibanez to 1300$ + more brands. But when you paid 300$ for every single Peavey. That makes a total 3000$ on a cool collection. You invested the money good and will earn on them.

But the question is, do you got a better bass than a regular new Fender American Proffesional 2019 made in Corona for 1700$ ?
 
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#109
To each their own. I can’t think of any $1500 guitars I would trade for any of those. AM fender, G&L, skyline, keisel, etc. maybe Ibanez I might.

Different strokes for different folks.

smcd said:
Depends what those $300 basses are. 9 of the 10 basses in the photo below cost me $300 or less. They all play and sound as good as or better than any $1,500 bass you can buy today. In fact I can't think of a single new bass in the $1,500 price range that I would trade any one of them for.

View attachment 3307861
Click to expand...
 
#111
BostonJazz72 said:
The other issue is how much storage space do you have? For me, living in a apartment I really don't have room for more than a few basses. With that being said, even without a space issue, I would take quality over quantity.
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I literally just thought of that. 1 bass takes up waaay less space than 5. Also, 5 (more) cases would really make my wife angry. You dont want to make her angry... you wont like it when shes angry....
 
#112
Early last year, I couldn’t get this idea out of my head: Cirrus.

And I’m like, “A Peavey? What kind of crazy is this?” Are the voices in my head messing with me?

I’d just spent months cleaning house of five basses, amps, gear of all sorts, and was focused on light weight, four string basses. I’d just bought a stellar Dingwall Super P4, and sold my last five string. I didn’t need another bass, one was going to do it.

But there I was, cruising the TB classifieds. Cirrus, Cirrus, Cirrus....

Next thing I know, and $780 later, this arrives. Mint, flame redwood top, original case and candy, from about 1998. Like it had been in a time capsule.

Sure, it needed a set up and strings, had some wiring issues and there was a voltage leak that was killing batteries, (like the pre was always on) and I added $30 worth of bling with new gold knobs. Those minor issues addressed, I’m at $830.

But damn, this thing plays great and sounds glorious. The 18 volt active pickups and pre amp are awesome.

I call it my Mississippi Alembic. Makes a perfect alternative to the Dingwall passive P bass. Super hifi.

I hadn’t looked at a Peavey since checking out T-40’s in the early eighties. These basses are seriously undervalued. The price does not come close to reflecting the quality. And, yeah, I’d put it up against a new Made in USA Fender any day.

5B0DA3E4-3946-4805-ADB3-B55C4BDC4E25.jpeg
 
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#115
singlemalt said:
Early last year, I couldn’t get this idea out of my head: Cirrus.

And I’m like, “A Peavey? What kind of crazy is this?” Are the voices in my head messing with me?

I’d just spent months cleaning house of five basses, amps, gear of all sorts, and was focused on light weight, four string basses. I’d just bought a stellar Dingwall Super P4, and sold my last five string. I didn’t need another bass, one was going to do it.

But there I was, cruising the TB classifieds. Cirrus, Cirrus, Cirrus....

Next thing I know, and $780 later, this arrives. Mint, flame redwood top, original case and candy, from about 1998. Like it had been in a time capsule.

Sure, it needed a set up and strings, had some wiring issues and there was a voltage leak that was killing batteries, (like the pre was always on) and I added $30 worth of bling with new gold knobs. Those minor issues addressed, I’m at $830.

But damn, this thing plays great and sounds glorious. The 18 volt active pickups and pre amp are awesome.

I call it my Mississippi Alembic. Makes a perfect alternative to the Dingwall passive P bass. Super hifi.

I hadn’t looked at a Peavey since checking out T-40’s in the early eighties. These basses are seriously undervalued. The price does not come close to reflecting the quality. And, yeah, I’d put it up against a new Made in USA Fender any day.

View attachment 3309161
Click to expand...


Yeah, some of those peaveys are hard to beat. I had a mid 80’s Foundation that was a tank. I have always had a soft spot for Peavey. I guess I am biased since I live in Ms.
 
#116
I like to have clear #1, in this case some form of Ash/Maple Sadowsky J bass. That bass is capable of handling every gig I have. And I have never had a gig failure from the bass, quality (gig worthy basses) don't fail if they are maintained. And it's been years since I've broken a bass string. Would I like to have a couple of other basses for different moods, maybe a decent fretless? Yep, but I don't need that for my gigs, and the sound men along with the MD's love my tone. I couple of weeks ago I took the guitar player from my church worship team to see a band with one of the best bass players in the world, who was playing a $6000+ bass that night in a small club. We got back to my place and were messing around and he told me my tone was better than that player. I agree. :)

OTOH, there are plenty of gig worthy bases on the market in the $500 range to me. To me gig worthy means this: A neck that holds a set up and intonation, decent fretwork, and a reasonably consistent tone from note to note. Also the electronics should be reliably wired with good components, and if there is an active pre-amp it should be reasonably noise free and send a decent signal to a DI. BUT, I've seen a few 250-500 basses that did not meet that standard, we have one bass player in church right now who we can barely get a passable tone thru to the board. I don't consider that bass a "gig worthy-professional" bass. And no one who gets paid to play should be bringing that type of instrument to a gig.
 
#117
singlemalt said:
Early last year, I couldn’t get this idea out of my head: Cirrus.

And I’m like, “A Peavey? What kind of crazy is this?” Are the voices in my head messing with me?

I’d just spent months cleaning house of five basses, amps, gear of all sorts, and was focused on light weight, four string basses. I’d just bought a stellar Dingwall Super P4, and sold my last five string. I didn’t need another bass, one was going to do it.

But there I was, cruising the TB classifieds. Cirrus, Cirrus, Cirrus....

Next thing I know, and $780 later, this arrives. Mint, flame redwood top, original case and candy, from about 1998. Like it had been in a time capsule.

Sure, it needed a set up and strings, had some wiring issues and there was a voltage leak that was killing batteries, (like the pre was always on) and I added $30 worth of bling with new gold knobs. Those minor issues addressed, I’m at $830.

But damn, this thing plays great and sounds glorious. The 18 volt active pickups and pre amp are awesome.

I call it my Mississippi Alembic. Makes a perfect alternative to the Dingwall passive P bass. Super hifi.

I hadn’t looked at a Peavey since checking out T-40’s in the early eighties. These basses are seriously undervalued. The price does not come close to reflecting the quality. And, yeah, I’d put it up against a new Made in USA Fender any day.

View attachment 3309161
Click to expand...
Nice Cirrus! I want a 4-string, but then I want that Musicman sound also. I remember reading someone put a MM pickup in a Cirrus with lackluster results. I saved up and bought a 2001 Peacock Blue Maple 5 string new, paid just over $1100 for it (store employee discount) and it's one of 2 basses I WILL NOT sell
 
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