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

This is my first 5-String Bass and I'm extremely satisfied with my choice. I looked at new Yamaha, Squire, Sire, Fender, Sterling, Ibanez basses as well as a few used Warwick, Peavy, G&L and other (brands mentioned above.) I was looking for a bass that was well suited for modern music styles and the SR405 delivers. I also compared it side-by-side with the Ibanez SR505 and preferred the SR405. The instrument is well constructed and the one I received was setup very nicely with only small adjustments needed. I bought this bass in "Tropical Seafloor Burst" and the woodgrain/colors paired with the gold hardware looks beautiful & modern. The electronics, hardware and other components are great and I do not see a need to upgrade anything until it becomes necessary. It should be noted that the string spacing is narrower on the SR-Series basses than many "traditional" 5-String P/J style basses - just something to be aware of. I'm enjoying the sleek feel of the neck/strings and, coming from the Precision/Jazz world, the Ibanez feels pretty futuristic. Tone-wise, I have been able to dial in all of the modern sounds I was looking for - as well as some good approximations of your more traditional P & J Bass tones. The active EQ & Tone Switching is nice to have onboard and I find it to be useful and musical. I have an Aguilar Tone Hammer on my pedalboard - which I love - and run everything through that as well. I can enthusiastically recommend this bass to all those who are seeking a versatile workhorse that looks great, plays great, is an amazing value and - most importantly - sounds awesome.

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

I was amazed at this bass. I was looking for a sub-$800 5-string flexible bass for recording and some church playing and small gigs. First think that caught my eye was the finish, I saw the 4-string in my local music store and I loved it, I know it's not for everyone, the sparkle from the metallic finish bleeds on the clear coat on the poplar burl, my particular bass has some flaming on the top which fades into the gold burst. There are 2-3 little imperfections with the finish, but that's it and I really looked. When it comes to playability, the bass was set up perfectly out of the box, the spacing between strings is really close which is is great for me, I just find myself putting too much pressure in the B string when resting my thumb and it ends up hitting the pickup, I got to get used to that. Besides that it has a really fast neck, great action, and the bass let's you try a lot of different techniques. another imperfection that I found is that the pick up blend knob was not as sturdy as I would like, besides this, all of the controls in this bass manage to let it be really flexible. As I came to understand there is no really passive switch on this, it's just humbuckers, single coil and a boosted single coil, so all of your options are active, I personally love the single coil and the boosted single coil. I love the mid boost and cut which is less aggressive than the bass and treble. I can emulate a P-bass sound, really good J-bass sound, but playing with the versatility of the modern active bass sound is just what I was looking for. I tried, several bases even from better tiers in Ibanez, and I stuck with this one, the fact that the Mars Gold Burst is a Yearly color, makes it more special. I was not disappointed with this purchase on the slightest.

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