I recently purchased a Sire V9 version 2 5 string, and I upgraded it. It was a major learning process that took a fair amount of time, so I thought I would share what I found so other people might benefit. I imagine what I did would apply to any Sire V series, version 2.
In making the upgrades, I corresponded with Sire, Nordstrand and Fender, and various retail shops. The information I got was of mixed accuracy.
I chose the Sire V9 based on the good reviews, the price, and the features I wanted -- a bound neck, large block position markers, and the ability to install noiseless pickups. To my knowledge, the only other jazz bass type instrument that offers these are the Fender Ultra series, at a much higher cost. Even with the upgrades I made, I only ended up spending about 2/3 of what the Fender costs (I got a good discount from one of the big box retailers). I believe the bass I have now is of very high quality. The only downside I see is that if I ever wanted to replace the neck, I would not be able to, like you can with a Fender, since it it probably not standard fittings.
The first thing I wanted was a hard case. Sire told me that any jazz bass case would work, but the truth is that most will not. The Sire V series is a bit longer and wider than a standard jazz bass. It's "taller" as well, because of the stacked knobs. And if you look around at case dimensions, you get different numbers depending on where you look. To make a long story short, the Gator GW-BASS (not GWE-BASS) case fits it perfectly.
Next the tuners. I can't say I had any issue with the tuners that came on the V9, but that is one of the complaints that people have had about Sire basses, so I decided to look into it, especially because I really like the Graphtech Ratio tuners -- they have a different gear ratio for each string, which, in my opinion, makes tuning a lot easier and more accurate. To make another long story short, the Graphtech Ratio tuners are an exact drop in on the V9 -- because they are made by the same company that makes the Sire tuners, not by Graphtech! The company is Hanchang (hctuner.com) and apparently they make tuners for a lot of companies. So the tuners dropped right in and work well. But here is the disturbing part -- a set of four Hanchang tuners that look the same as the Sire ones goes for as low as $40 for the set. The best price I could find on the Ratios was $180. Other than the gear ratios, you can't tell them apart. Now I can see that having very high ratios, and having five tuners over four would result in some significant price difference, but more than four times?!? I contacted Hanchang to see if the Ratios were made of better metal, etc, but never heard back. Hmmmm . . .
Lastly the pickups -- it gets more difficult. I hate 60 cycle hum, so I had to convince myself that I would be able to get a set of noiseless pickups to replace the originals before I bought the bass -- unfortunately Sire does not have a noiseless pickup option for the V series. It took a couple days, but Sire did send me the dimensions for the V9 5 string pickups. Fortunately, they are common 5 string jazz bass pickup dimensions. From the specs on the Nordstrand and Aguilar web sites, I believed that I could install some set of noiseless 5 string pickups, so I ordered the bass.
I decided to go with the Nordstrand pickups. It took about a month to get them. One of the pickups installed okay, but I had to use the original Sire pickup cover to get the other one to install -- the Nordstrand cover was just a hair too big. Not a big deal. However, when I fired up the bass, I could hear a constant high pitched tone, and a clicking sound that occurred about once a second. I did what the Nordstrand website says to do when you have an issue -- emailed via the contact page and left a voicemail. Days past and I heard nothing. As a last resort, I sent an email to the address listed on the invoice, and that got a response. Nordstrand felt that it had to be a shielding or grounding issue. It you have ever looked inside the V9, you can see it is very well shielded. So over the next week I tried a variety of things they suggested, eventually bypassing all of the electronics in the control cavity, with no luck, so I returned them. Nordstrand was difficult to get hold of, but once I did, they were very responsive and tried their best to help. They gave me a full refund.
My theory about the Nordstrand noise is that it is due to how they try to achieve noiseless-ness. It takes two coils to cancel 60 cycle hum. Nordstrand does this with two coils side by side. The problem is, on a five string pickup, one of the coils is larger than the other, so the hum canceling is not "balanced" which makes it incomplete. But that is just conjecture on my part -- I really don't understand the physics behind it.
I figured out that the Fender five string noiseless pickups were stacks -- two coils on top of one another, the full width of the pickup. It took a few tries to get Fender to send me the dimensions, and they never did send me the correct ones, but I decided to try them anyway. They fit well, except that they are a little tall, so I needed to use a real slim rubberish pad underneath instead of the ones that came with the bass (I used the material you find on the arms of those old Ultimate Support keyboard stands).
The Fender noiseless are very quiet. The bass sounds great and plays great. No hum, great tone. High quality as well, at about 2/3 the cost of the alternative.
In making the upgrades, I corresponded with Sire, Nordstrand and Fender, and various retail shops. The information I got was of mixed accuracy.
I chose the Sire V9 based on the good reviews, the price, and the features I wanted -- a bound neck, large block position markers, and the ability to install noiseless pickups. To my knowledge, the only other jazz bass type instrument that offers these are the Fender Ultra series, at a much higher cost. Even with the upgrades I made, I only ended up spending about 2/3 of what the Fender costs (I got a good discount from one of the big box retailers). I believe the bass I have now is of very high quality. The only downside I see is that if I ever wanted to replace the neck, I would not be able to, like you can with a Fender, since it it probably not standard fittings.
The first thing I wanted was a hard case. Sire told me that any jazz bass case would work, but the truth is that most will not. The Sire V series is a bit longer and wider than a standard jazz bass. It's "taller" as well, because of the stacked knobs. And if you look around at case dimensions, you get different numbers depending on where you look. To make a long story short, the Gator GW-BASS (not GWE-BASS) case fits it perfectly.
Next the tuners. I can't say I had any issue with the tuners that came on the V9, but that is one of the complaints that people have had about Sire basses, so I decided to look into it, especially because I really like the Graphtech Ratio tuners -- they have a different gear ratio for each string, which, in my opinion, makes tuning a lot easier and more accurate. To make another long story short, the Graphtech Ratio tuners are an exact drop in on the V9 -- because they are made by the same company that makes the Sire tuners, not by Graphtech! The company is Hanchang (hctuner.com) and apparently they make tuners for a lot of companies. So the tuners dropped right in and work well. But here is the disturbing part -- a set of four Hanchang tuners that look the same as the Sire ones goes for as low as $40 for the set. The best price I could find on the Ratios was $180. Other than the gear ratios, you can't tell them apart. Now I can see that having very high ratios, and having five tuners over four would result in some significant price difference, but more than four times?!? I contacted Hanchang to see if the Ratios were made of better metal, etc, but never heard back. Hmmmm . . .
Lastly the pickups -- it gets more difficult. I hate 60 cycle hum, so I had to convince myself that I would be able to get a set of noiseless pickups to replace the originals before I bought the bass -- unfortunately Sire does not have a noiseless pickup option for the V series. It took a couple days, but Sire did send me the dimensions for the V9 5 string pickups. Fortunately, they are common 5 string jazz bass pickup dimensions. From the specs on the Nordstrand and Aguilar web sites, I believed that I could install some set of noiseless 5 string pickups, so I ordered the bass.
I decided to go with the Nordstrand pickups. It took about a month to get them. One of the pickups installed okay, but I had to use the original Sire pickup cover to get the other one to install -- the Nordstrand cover was just a hair too big. Not a big deal. However, when I fired up the bass, I could hear a constant high pitched tone, and a clicking sound that occurred about once a second. I did what the Nordstrand website says to do when you have an issue -- emailed via the contact page and left a voicemail. Days past and I heard nothing. As a last resort, I sent an email to the address listed on the invoice, and that got a response. Nordstrand felt that it had to be a shielding or grounding issue. It you have ever looked inside the V9, you can see it is very well shielded. So over the next week I tried a variety of things they suggested, eventually bypassing all of the electronics in the control cavity, with no luck, so I returned them. Nordstrand was difficult to get hold of, but once I did, they were very responsive and tried their best to help. They gave me a full refund.
My theory about the Nordstrand noise is that it is due to how they try to achieve noiseless-ness. It takes two coils to cancel 60 cycle hum. Nordstrand does this with two coils side by side. The problem is, on a five string pickup, one of the coils is larger than the other, so the hum canceling is not "balanced" which makes it incomplete. But that is just conjecture on my part -- I really don't understand the physics behind it.
I figured out that the Fender five string noiseless pickups were stacks -- two coils on top of one another, the full width of the pickup. It took a few tries to get Fender to send me the dimensions, and they never did send me the correct ones, but I decided to try them anyway. They fit well, except that they are a little tall, so I needed to use a real slim rubberish pad underneath instead of the ones that came with the bass (I used the material you find on the arms of those old Ultimate Support keyboard stands).
The Fender noiseless are very quiet. The bass sounds great and plays great. No hum, great tone. High quality as well, at about 2/3 the cost of the alternative.
