Since you have Conklin experience, is $500 for the Conklin 5-string shown in the pictures above a reasonable price? It's a bit over what I want to pay and in truth feel that I may be able to find him a less expensive, better known bass in the $300 to $400 price range.
In fact, I do see 4-string Ibanez SR300's as low as $225 on eBay right now as well as a few other Ibanez's including this 5-string that looks interesting. Is there a certain set of PUPs that sound more "modern"?
I really hate to give advice to any beginner beyond "fender" or "Ibanez" because I hope you can see that there is a great deal to this business of choosing a bass. Not only sound but feel, weight, neck profile, active or passive, J or P and on and on... and all that above and beyond the issues of price. The problem is that when a person is just starting out, they tend to not know what exactly they'd really want. They don't have the experience to know. Hence, they tend to be dazzled by the flashy or weird and then end up with something that some time later has them saying, "what was I thinking when I got this?"
So generally speaking a Fender is pretty "safe" even for resale, and so is an Ibanez if your tonal desires lean that way. They both cover a pretty wide range of styles and music. An Ibanez has a thinner neck feel and a Fender a fatter one. So that can be an issue too. But either are a reasonable place to start for a beginner.
A conklin on the other hand is like a super-Ibanez. It's way over to one side on a scale. It's not one of my go-to basses unless the sound it has is the sound I'm looking for at the time. You've seen the reviews... all 9s and 10s. BUT what they don't say is that this is within the STYLE of Conklin. So yeah, $500 is a good price. As crow01 notes, this is drifting away from the mainstream.
But I don't want to lead anyone astray, and to me that means sticking to basses in the mainstream to start out. I know a local pro bass player who has just two basses: A Squier J and a Cheap Ibanez. He takes them both to gigs and tears down the house with them. But understand both were personally selected by him! As I said there is so much to this bass selection thing, that a beginner can't possibly hope to hit everything right the first time.
Hence I try to restrict my advice to standards like Fender and Ibanez. So hey, if he's into techno or something and is in love with that over-the-top Conklin sound, then go for it. But let me say that very few of us here (myself included) are still playing and happy with the bass we started with. Experience somehow gives you a much better grasp of perspective.
