# NBD Joining the fanned-fret club



## The-Machine-95 (Mar 18, 2015)

So, today I got home from uni to this beauty:

[insert joke about potato-quality phone pics here]





[/URL][/IMG]




[/URL][/IMG]




[/URL][/IMG]




[/URL][/IMG]




[/URL][/IMG]

First impressions:

Holy crap I love Soundgear basses. Everything about the playability of this bass is awesome. The neck is thin and slick, the body is unbelievably comfortable, the fretboard is flat and the action is low. It's true what people say about multiscale guitars - I was comfortable with this thing within 30 seconds.

Despite the 35.5" scale at the low B, it still feels a bit floppy thanks to the puny .130 gauge string. At some point I'll get a set of Kaliums, but for now it's plenty usable. The other strings are pretty well balanced, both in feel and in volume - definitely an improvement over my Sterling SUB Ray5

As far as I can tell through my little Ashdown Five Fifteen (which can't handle the low B even at bedroom volumes), it sounds pretty nice and has all the versatility I need. I've never used a mid-frequency switch before, so I was surprised at how much difference it makes to the sound.

Quality is awesome, with a few exceptions. The fretwork is great - nothing sharp to be found here. The neck pocket and other general workmanship is great. There are only three gripes I have with it:
1. The edges of the fretboard look a tiny bit sloppy. I'm not really concerned here as it's nothing drastic and it doesn't affect playability, or even appearance, really.
2. One of the tiny 'wings' they add on the side of the headstock doesn't match the colour very well at all. It can't be seen from the front though.
3. The main issue I have is a tiny, tiny glue spot on the back of the neck. It's very small, so it took me a while to notice it, but it can be felt while playing. Anybody got advice on what to do here? Are these things easy to remove? I'd rather not return the bass as I'm very happy with it and I think the place I bought it from has sold out of them, with the next shipment not coming until June. The glue spot isn't a _huge_ problem, and short of sending the bass back I'm not going to try to do something with it right away, I just want to know that it _can_ be fixed, and hopefully without too much expense.

Anyway, here are the specs:

Ibanez SRFF805

Neck: 5 piece jatoba/bubinga
Body: Ash
Fretboard: Rosewood
Scale: 25.5"-24"
Pickups: Bartolini BH-1s
Hardware: Ibanez tuners and mono-rail V bridge
Electronics: Ibanez 3-band EQ with bypass and mid-freq selector

Conclusion:
If it wasn't for that tiny glue spot, I wouldn't be able to stop singing Ibanez's praises. This bass is just so easy to play. I feel like it actually wants me to play better. And it also just looks gorgeous. I'm finding it nearly impossible to put it down.

PS:
For those who want the pickup cavity measurements (I used a ruler, so don't expect pin-point accuracy):

Length: about 126.5 mm
Width: about 31mm


----------



## hairychris (Mar 18, 2015)

Nice! the Ibby FFs do look good. Not helping my GAS, haha.

Only thing is that I'm running a full USA version of the EBMM Sub 5 and I'm not getting rid of it! I prefer the way it sounds over my SR505 even though it's a little more hard work to play.

Glue spot can be removed carefully with a razor blade or very sharp craft knife. Lie blade (so it matches angle of the sharpened edge) against neck and take top of spot off a fraction of a mm at a time. I wouldn't sand it down as that's a bit indiscriminate"

As for #2, PRS use the same method of building up headstocks and even they don't always match up. Don't worry about it! ;-)


----------



## Der JD (Mar 18, 2015)

The-Machine-95 said:


> PS:
> For those who want the pickup cavity measurements (I used a ruler, so don't expect pin-point accuracy):
> 
> Length: about 126.5 mm
> Width: about 31mm


 
Thanks for the review. Congrats! Nice looking bass. How are you liking the pickups/preamp so far?

Not a lot of reviews out there for the BH-1s. I'm starting to get GAS for the new BTB33 and it has BH-1s as well. They are my main source of worry. I just don't know what to expect.

I took a quick look at pickups on bestbassgear.com. The Bartolini 96P56C (P5 Shape) was the closest in terms of measurements that I could find (127 mm x 32 mm). I didn't see anything from Nordstrand, Aguilar, Delano, or Duncan that were closer. 

I recently bought a SR1605E. I love everything about the bass and as they always say, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", but a part of me wonders what it would sound like with a different preamp. Maybe someday I'll try it.


----------



## beavis2306 (Mar 18, 2015)

HNBD. The srff do look pretty rad. I'm lusting for an srff 806 (six string version) but the unusual pick rout size concerns me. Thanks for the measurements though, i haven't been able to find that anywhere. Do they strike you as the sort of pup you'd need to replace? How do you feel about em.


----------



## PunchLine (Mar 18, 2015)

HNBD and congrats on the acquisition... I am really interested this one, thanks for the review too.


----------



## The-Machine-95 (Mar 18, 2015)

Thanks for the kind words guys. As I said, I can't really comment on the electronics or pickups as my only bass amp is a 100W (peak) Ashdown Five Fifteen that starts clipping even at bedroom levels. I'll have to wait until I can play it through something nicer to form an opinion.


----------



## Radau (Mar 19, 2015)

Looking good dude!


----------



## HighGain510 (Mar 19, 2015)

Jealous! Outside of a Dingwall, that's like one of the best-looking production fanned fret basses out there IMHO! Looks awesome aesthetically, great to hear it's pretty sweet overall!  That glue spot issue should be pretty easy to fix as someone already pointed out, and the headstock wing not matching really isn't a big deal to the instrument as a whole but I do get that it's not exactly aesthetically-pleasing when the grain color doesn't match on the headstock.


----------



## noUser01 (Mar 19, 2015)

Sick! I really want to get one of these soon myself, so I appreciate the review. Looks like it holds up pretty well! Congrats man, HNGD.


----------



## Grand Moff Tim (Mar 19, 2015)

Told you multiscale is pretty great, dude. No regrets about getting this over the BTB, I take it. 

Like dude said above, it sounds like there's a bartolini size that's either a drop in replacement or a replacement that would take very minimal enlargement of the existing routes, so if you ever get tired of the stock pups, you'll probably have an option. There's always putting a new preamp in it, too, which won't involve any irreversible mods at all. 

For reference sake, some popular preamp makers are, in ascending order of price: Aguilar, Glockenklang, and Pope.
Aguilars have started popping up stock on a few guitars lately, like the LTD RB basses and the new Bunny Brunel siggie. Glockenklang is one of the preamps that Dingwall has as an option, and Pope is what Fodera uses. They are _not_ cheap.


----------



## The-Machine-95 (Mar 20, 2015)

Grand Moff Tim said:


> Told you multiscale is pretty great, dude. No regrets about getting this over the BTB, I take it.
> 
> Like dude said above, it sounds like there's a bartolini size that's either a drop in replacement or a replacement that would take very minimal enlargement of the existing routes, so if you ever get tired of the stock pups, you'll probably have an option. There's always putting a new preamp in it, too, which won't involve any irreversible mods at all.
> 
> ...



Well, until I have a chance to play one of those BTBs, I'll never know for sure, but for the moment, I'm certainly not feeling any buyer's remorse.

I'm not worried much about the pickups and electronics. They're fine, so I doubt I'll replace them. At least not until I get an amp that actually allows me to distinguish good electronics from bad  

I picked up my SUB Ray5 just a few minutes ago, and once again realised how great the Ibanez feels in comparison. The difference is night and day.

I think I'm going to be sticking with the SRFF for a long, long time.


----------

