Actually I do not. I've had one in my possession but I never once plugged it in and played it.
I had PJ Rubal's 30th Anniversary NS-230 here for about 4 months. Funny story, but the first NS-230's neck was done by Larry Robinson. Larry told me he only likes to do one-off's any more and so he designed the neck and did the first one, but then introduced Stuart to a friend of his to do the other 14 necks.
PJ ordered #2. The neck was completed and ready for wings, but PJ wanted to find something really, really special to build them from.
So the neck stayed in the NY Workshop in the wood storage room while PJ patiently searched for the right wood.
Two years would go by. In 2009 PJ finally found the wood he wanted to use and purchased it. There were millimeters to spare in cutting the blocks for the wings.
The body was finished and it was ready for electronics and I can't remember why, but there was a shortage of USA 9v circuits. HazLabs might have been having issues getting one of the transistors or some part for them and they were trickling out of NJ... so one 3 or 4 (it might have been more, I'm just counting the times PJ told me he did this) times PJ passed up having his bass completed so that the circuit earmarked for his NS-230 could complete an NS-2 that someone had ordered and was waiting for it.
On November 11th, 2010 at 1:09 pm my doorbell rang and I answered it to find the FedEx man standing there with a Spector box. It has been overnighted to me.
I opened the box, knowing that PJ's NS-230 was in it... I had a special pair of museum gloves I'd purchased to handle a 2000 year old vase I had been hired to photograph a few years before ready.
I never played a single note on that bass. I handled it with these gloves on at all times. Pj had that bass shipped to me before ever seeing it himself. I figured he'd waited almost 4 years to have it, it needed to get to him in the EXACT condition it left the workshop. Out of respect for what an amazing bass it is and for PJ for entrusting me with it, I never played a note and I sincerely only handled it with gloves on. I sent them to him in the case with it when I shipped it to him.
Which ironically because of the winter and the bad weather, was 4 months later. I asked him if he wanted me to bring it to NAMM so he could take it home from there. And he said, "Nah, then I'd have to fly with it and all of that... it's safe where it is... just hold on to it."
That bass has the most amazing solid walnut burl wings I've ever seen. PJ has played it and says it sounds great.
For historical purposes, the first NS-1 and NS-2 models were traditionally made with solid black walnut wings. The same material Stuart uses as the back half of bases made with Buckeye Burl and the Water Cured Redwood basses. It's rich and warm.
Buckeye Burl, BTW, is almost completely neutral. It has no tone per-se. So Stuart marries it to the black walnut to add warmth and depth to the tone.
The Water Cured Redwood... wow. I had a 20 minute conversation with Stuart about the tone of the Water Cured Redwood basses the night before the NAMM Show started last month as we drove to dinner.
Stuart said it's the best sounding wood he's ever used. So I asked him why didn't he make any solid WCR basses and he his answer was totally unexpected. I thought it was because the Black Walnut probably balanced the tone or added some quality.
Nope. His answer was, "A bass made with solid WCR wings would have sounded amazing! But I knew the log was a one-of-a-kind and I loved the way the wood sounded so much, I chose to do half-wings so I could spread the wood out over more basses. I could have made 15 or so with solid wings, because of the amount that has to be wasted... or I could get 40 if I did half wings. So I chose to do the 40 so more people could have one."
My NS-4 WCR is hands-down the best sounding Spector I've ever played. It was a complete fluke that I got it. It's officially "the last WCR Spector" because Stuart had two more wing sets, both with severe flaws in the wood and a nice amount of wood filler to "fix" the flaws. So for a while he wasn't even sure he would use those two sets.
My set of wings had been set aside in the beginning for Stuart himself. They are some of the most figured wings to come from that log. With them being the last set a customer with cash in hand really wanted then and Stuart decided to part with them. They would become an NS-5XL. So they were routed and at the last minute before the neck was completed the customer changed their mind and the wings went back into availability, but now they'd been routed for the 18v circuit.
I knew from day one when I finally worked out my consulting agreement and my deal was for trade in USA Spectors...
that I wanted a WCR model. And only one set of wings was left, and so my first USA Spector had to be an NS-4.
And truly, it's an amazing bass. Perfect, flawless, and so rich and deep yet articulate and clear.
My goal is to one day see if Stuart would build me a NS-1 model. And if he agrees to do that I'd want to have it made with solid walnut wings. It wouldn't be an NS-1 without them.
PJ's highly figured Walnut Burl wings are very different from the Black Walnut wing halves of the Buckeye Burl and WCR models.
And of course the solid Black Walnut wings of the NS-1 and early NS-2 models. Tonally I'm not sure what the difference is or would be.
The back of my WCR NS-4
And of course PJ's NS-230's Walnut Burl is similar in some ways to the WCR... but upon close inspection they're really nothing alike.
