I played my 8 string right as I received it out of the box and it immediately impressed me as a solid playing piece. The neck and action are fast and true and the sound is responsive to my playing style. The fit and finish are very good and the hardware finish well polished and smooth. Electronics are very smooth to operate and give a wide tonal range with more boost than a good amp will ever require.

Sound
I have both the TLD B208 and the B205 fretless models which are identical with the exception of the tailpiece and tuning heads and nut. I find the sound produced by the pickups and electronics as responsive as I would expect from any active bass. The dynamics are smooth with a very low noise floor and responsiveness to touch which seems to increase to a max as the 3 EQ controls were set to the center position. This therefore requires more gain from the front end of the amp which is a good thing since that means that the pickups are actually producing their natural sound when the EQ is dialed to be neutral. Jack Cassady makes a big thing out of being able to get the best dynamic range out of passive pickups and he has a point. This bass conforms to that value when played with the EQ set flat.

Features
I like the quality of the tuners and the no-nonsense design of the saddles and nut. The six bolt neck joint is very cool and the taper on the body tab that accepts the neck means no bulky square Jazz/P Bass neck mount… read more to have to reach around. THis is MUCH MORE elegant and yet of inherently greater stability when using neck flexion rather than finger bending for fast double stop/chord vibrato. The only conceivable disadvantage of this is that the neck joint is bolted WAY UP into the meat of the body so the "neck" pickup is actually mounted in more of a "center body" position. It should ne noted that this is the trend anyway with modern basses as the default "normally expected" tone has shifted to a moremid-treble balance. Even the T-Birds nowadays don't offer true neck pickups (although the Epi EB3 and SG basses do). The 3 band EQ circuitry on these basses is also a substantial improvement over the 2 band on the T-Bird Pro 5.

Ease of Use
It's all about setting the string height correctly for how hard you're going to be plucking the strings how far away from the bridge. These necks set up very straight and true and I haven't had to file the depth of the nuts although I did take a flat mill file to the height of the nuts on both the ESP five string and 8 string basses. The nut doesn't have to be any higher than to cradle half the diameter of the strings and these nuts were protruding 1/16" above the strings so that rough feel when sliding down to the open string had to go. Once that was taken care of and EQ set to just a touch of bass boost I was very satisfied with the well-rounded sound. The neck profile is MUCH faster than that on my T-Bird 5 which for some reason has the outside strings positioned a good 3 16" from the edges of the fingerboard. This would be fine for an upright but the LTDs are far better feeling bass guitar necks.

Quality
I like both of these basses. The tuners are smooth, good ratio top quality. The transparent black finish of the 8 along with the transparent black (pewter colored?) hardware is striking. The fretless 5 is a spalted maple top natural which looks real ritzy. I do have concern about the durability of the Rosewood fingerboards but at least the frets will tend to take the wear of the round wounds strings on the 8 and I will put LaBella NYLON NEGROS strings (which are flat) on the fretless 5

Value
These basses are very good quality for the dollar. Even Ibanez is a bit more expensive and I can see no particular salient design or quality advantage in their offering.

Manufacturer Support
Haven't had any problems or need for return so nothing to report here

The Wow Factor
These basses look SLEEK and SHARP. The headstock design is very original, elegant and recognizable. Since the neck is 24 fret instead of 20 frets long and the cutaway is to about the 23 (as seen from the front of the instrument anyway) the body can be smaller and more squat but with longer horns. It therefore weighs less than a P or Jazz bass body.

Musical Background:
I'm multiinstrumental with pickup and wedding bands

Musical Style:
Easy listening, classic rock, blues, Schlager, Rembetika read less