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Thoughts on Sterling by Music Man S.U.B.?

dwagner

dwagner

Feb 9, 2013
655
1,556
North Dakota, USA
#1
I'm a lefty, and saw that there's going to be a Sterling By MusicMan 5 String coming out soon (saw it on Guitar Center's site). Link here.

It's going to be like 379 USD I believe, which is a budget bass for sure but figured this might be a good way for me to see what 5 string is all about since us lefties don't have many options.

Contacted Sweetwater (because I don't trust GC's quality control / lack of setups / customer service) and they said they don't carry Sterling by MM because the quality control is so iffy on them.

What do you guys think about these basses? Have you had any bad/good experiences worth noting?
 
#3
dwagner said:
I'm a lefty, and saw that there's going to be a Sterling By MusicMan 5 String coming out soon (saw it on Guitar Center's site). Link here.

It's going to be like 379 USD I believe, which is a budget bass for sure but figured this might be a good way for me to see what 5 string is all about since us lefties don't have many options.

Contacted Sweetwater (because I don't trust GC's quality control / lack of setups / customer service) and they said they don't carry Sterling by MM because the quality control is so iffy on them.

What do you guys think about these basses? Have you had any bad/good experiences worth noting?
Click to expand...

That answer is just pure crap. I like Sweetwater's candy but really, don't buy into that particular sale associate's (I would use an expletive here but I'll behave). They don't carry Sterling basses because they're not a dealer. For the same reason why they don't carry Warwick basses- they're not or at least not yet an authorized Warwick dealer. Do Warwick basses have quality control issues too - will that be their answer? ;)

Sterling is a very decent brand, read the many threads about it here, many owners who are happy with not just the Ray34, Ray24 but also the SUB series.

Order from MF. The SUB Rays I picked up a few years ago were completely playable out of the box, required little adjusting. Just lowered the saddles a pinch to get the string action to where I wanted it.
 
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#4
Agreed. The sales rep simply did not know what he was talking about. The quality of these basses is very good. The lefty SUB Ray5 is part of the budget line, but a seriously good bass for the money. The righty version was very favourably reviewed in Bass Guitar Magazine.

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#5
I think the brand quality is very good. I had one of the very first Ray34's in the beginning when there were no other product offerings and it was fantastic...I'd say about 85% of the US made.

I have picked up the Ray4 series in GC and must say, I thought they were very nice, but I personally didn't like the cheap looking bridge, and even though the neck finish was nice, it just felt flimsy. Almost too lite and nothing substantial feeling about it, if that makes sense. It seems to me a great bedroom/hobby bass but not really gigable for me. But sounded great - hard to tell between that and a real Stingray.

Surely there must be more options for lefty's. I'd be looking for a Yamaha BB something if I could find one. Great quality, gigable, sound great.
 

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