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Verified Purchaser zZounds has verified that this reviewer purchased this specific product from us.

I've had this bass for about 2 years now. I'm a semi-professional bassist and multi instrumentalist with over 40 years experience and formal music education. First let me say that this bass sounds great, is very versatile and comfortable playing long sets. I have played everything from country, classic rock, jazz,funk,punk,heavy metal and Christian contemporary etc with this bass and it works excellent for everything running it through a Hartke HA5500 with a Hartke 810 for medium to large gigs and through an Ampeg Rockit Bass RB210 for medium and smaller gigs. I bought this bass predominantly for playing at church since my other basses are 4 string and we tend to play many songs in Eb so getting a 5 string made it easier plus I no longer was forced to play Eb higher up. Now about the issue! Not long after getting this bass and in the middle of music worship at church the bottom screw of the neck pickup stripped out causing the pickup to pop up against the bottom 2 strings. I was able to finish playing on the top strings but was really shocked this happened on a brand new bass. I decided not to send it back nor call customer support as I knew it was an easy fix by simply wrapping Teflon tape around the pickup hight adjustment screw and then putting the screw back in. So far this has held that particular screw in place, however, yesterday while playing the top pickup hight adjustment screw of the bridge pickup stripped out and did the same thing popping up against the top couple strings. Again I removed the screw and wrapped it in Teflon tape and reinstalled it. This is ridiculous for a bass costing over one thousand dollars. I have determined that the basswood used for the body is simply way too soft and had I known this when shopping I would have spent the extra money and purchased the more expensive one with the mahogany body which is now about $1,800.00 plus nearly $300.00 for the hardshell case. So, that is my recommendation based upon my experience is to pass on the basswood and go for the mahogany/burlwood model if you can afford it. I'm planning to purchase that very model myself very soon! Also I intend to remove the pickups from this bass and fill the screw holes with wood filler and then re-drill pilot holes then install the pickups with different screws that have a deeper thread cut as I believe that the factory screws threads are far too shallow which compounded the problem of the too soft basswood body. I should also mention that I have a bad back in my old age and weight was a big part of the reason I chose the basswood over the mahogany since my other 2 basses are both neck-thru mahogany via an ESP C-304 and an Epiphone Thunderbird with Gibson electronics. Both are quite heavy. I hope this review helps. BTW, I chose not to return it as I figured it would be a crap shoot on getting one with even more problems or shipping damage and didn't want the hassle. I in no way hold zZounds responsible nor liable for this issue as it is clearly a manufacturing defect or possible a design defect or Ibanez just sources very crappy wood! You decide. Thanks for reading.

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Verified Purchaser zZounds has verified that this reviewer purchased this specific product from us.

Alright final review time. I have had a chance to get over a hundred hours of playtime; rehearsals, practice, recording and gigging with this bass over the few months.Let’s get the bad out of the way first, I absolutely hate the locking Jack input. I’ve never broken cables before I started using this input style, since then I’ve broken nice sturdy cable on this bass as well as one my other Ibanez BTB. However, I finally learned the trick of removing the cables but it’s still non-intuitive and it works best using right angle terminals. RIP to my faithful Pig Hog cables