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Steinberger Club
- Thread starter king_xanadu
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This is an incredible combination. So defined and deep… Love it… pure lowend
Very nice- that is indeed one of the ultra-rare wide models. Mine is a narrow one, the first five string models which were essentially a four string model with a five string bridge and headpiece.
Mine has the same HB pickups as the four string models, but mated with the same HAZ electronics as yours.
It looks like yours has wider pickups than the HB's. Are they the EMG 35's or 40's?
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Steve from Basschat had a XL-25 which I had a go on
Yes a 4 string bass with five string bridge and nut etc.
Too tight for thee
I was talking to a friend of mine about the XT basses. I have a red quilt-top XT25, and I was trying to remember what Gibson/Epiphone called that material they used for the fretboards. I decided to look up the specs on the website and discovered that Steinberger is essentially vapor. It's obvious that no more new instruments are being produced and they're simply selling off inventory. It looks like if you want a black XT, you're in luck. Any other color and you're out of luck. Steinberger.com is becoming a ghost town. (Cue the tumbleweeds and the theme from the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.)
A luthier friend, who did some routing on my white 2021 XT-25 to accommodate more appropriately-sized EMG 35 pickups, told me that the fretboard was ebony.
The original specs on the Steinberger website about five years ago named it and called it a man-made material, but I can't remember the name. No offense to your luthier friend, but Gibson isn't going to put an ebony fretboard on anything that doesn't say "Gibson" on it and costs under $2,500.
I echo your skepticsim but my friend has been working on instruments for about fifty years, built a line of his own guitars for a stint, and has blocks of wood, some of which are rare, which he's had long before they were banned, including ebony, in his shop.
Interestingly, Sweetwater, who sold the one I purchased, lists the current fingerboard material as rosewood, but mine is black or very dark and dense. Perhaps I mis-remember what my buddy told me-
Now, my XL-25 fretless has something definitely man-made, perhaps phenolic, for its fretboard.
Interestingly, Sweetwater, who sold the one I purchased, lists the current fingerboard material as rosewood, but mine is black or very dark and dense. Perhaps I mis-remember what my buddy told me-
Now, my XL-25 fretless has something definitely man-made, perhaps phenolic, for its fretboard.
Just took a picture- does it look man-made? I'm away from home and have no access to my other instruments that do have ebony on the fretboards for comparison-
Here is a black XT-25 as sold by Motor City Guitars- in this case they list the fretboard material as 'engineered hardwood' which looks more like a Richlite or chocolate brown color-
Here is a black XT-25 as sold by Motor City Guitars- in this case they list the fretboard material as 'engineered hardwood' which looks more like a Richlite or chocolate brown color-
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I noticed that on the Sweetwater site as well, and like yours, mine is quite dark with not even a subtle hint of any grain in the fretboard. My XT-25's fretboard developed some hairline cracks in it that I was able to stabilize by pushing ground-up pencil lead into them with the tip of a toothpick and hitting that with a dot of thin super glue. Those cracks don't seem like ebony to me. I don't mind a fretboard made out of man-made material. I'm pretty sure the fretboard on my '88 XL2 is man made, and it's never given me any problems. I think Sweetwater's rosewood idea might be a carryover from the Synapse days. I believe the Synapse basses had rosewood fretboards.
Yeah, that engineered hardwood term rings true to me. It almost looks more like a flat black formica, though I'm definitely not saying that's what it is. I just can't see Gibson putting ebony fretboards on a $450 Chinese bass.
I had understood that the more recent Gibson Steinbergers--the Synapses and Spirits--were all made at the Epiphone plants in either China or Korea. That'll teach me to believe everything that Uncle Sal says!
I just looked at a Thomann website where the fretboard material of the XT-2DB, which I also own, is listed as satinwood, also known as East Indian or Ceylon Satinwood. I looked it up and it's from Sri Lanka and Central and Southern India which could make sense, with the guitars being made in Indonesia.
However the color is more of a golden color, perhaps they stained it?
East Indian Satinwood | The Wood Database (Hardwood)
However the color is more of a golden color, perhaps they stained it?
East Indian Satinwood | The Wood Database (Hardwood)
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