STEINBERGER....

[BartmanPDX]

I saw some molds on ebay not too too long ago. Though I recall reading that the molds wore out over time. I don't think the molds are a reason that they wouldn't continue making em. You would just use a blank to make another mold as easy as anything I suppose.

Yeah, there were a lot of them on ebay for a while.

I think the startup costs, including making new molds, buying or contracting out the equipment used to make the basses, etc., would be prohibitive unless they were able to spread the costs fairly widely over a large number of instruments, which would depend on a certain level of demand. I don't think demand is at that point.

It's a much larger startup cost than just introducing a new line of typical (wood) basses.

 

[TonyP-]

Status are sweet and is on my GAS list.
But please don't lump all graphite neck/wood body basses together. My old XP-2 is a graphite neck/wood body bass. The difference is that it was made with the original Steinberger blend composite back when Steinberger was independent and had true quality control. She plays as good today as 22 or so years ago. No dead spots, no poor fret ends, and sustain for days. The difference is night and day to the new Steinbergers. The new Steinbergers are totally different and the quality is all over the place.

A few major differences between original Steinbergers and new ones:
Originals need no truss rod because the relief was engineered into a super stiff neck, i.e. High modulus of elasticity
New ones have minimal to no relief in the neck and require a truss rod to get the proper relief. The neck is much less stiff, i.e. lower modulus of elasticity.
Original steinbergers had a solid bridge using a quality milled steel.
New Steinberger bridges are hollow castings made of a cheap zinc alloy
Not to mention the originals had impecible quality control while the new ones have the quality control of Epiphone/Gibson.

Here's my baby:

Very Cool...

I have the same one. (second owner and I bought mine off a friend of mine).

Cleanist bass I have ever played.

I never gig with it, and have to many others so I think I'm going to be putting my in the classifieds later this week.

I rather it go to someone that is actually going to play it then make its home in the corner of my studio...

 

[Stealth]

Overall, would buying a Spirit Arrow (XP-5) be worth it or not? Personally, I wouldn't mind cashing out extra for a set of decent replacement pups (hm... an Arrow with a pair of Fat Stacks. HMMM.) so long as the treeware was decent enough.

 

[lowbass68]

I saw some molds on ebay not too too long ago. Though I recall reading that the molds wore out over time. I don't think the molds are a reason that they wouldn't continue making em. You would just use a blank to make another mold as easy as anything I suppose.

The molds for making a bass are extremely expensive to make. Also, most of the manufacturing process of graphite basses is manual. The whole process was probably more intensive that Gibson ever imagined. It ain't like CNC milling a bunch of wood planks in one step.

The molds that were on ebay were probably not usable for production anymore. The molds have a limited life and cannot hold tolerance after so many uses.

The Steinberger World newsgroup on yahoo had a good discussion on the Steinberger molds that were on ebay a while back.

 

[lowrez]

I was tempted to buy one as I thought it would be a cool thing to display, then decided not to due to its size. Kinda wish I had, but I have some storage issues as it is right now.