Ok, lets get the bad stuff out of the way first:
This bass can't be intonated properly with most strings. The bridge is installed too far from the neck.
Upon arrival the intonation was awful but with the stock D'Addario XL strings it could at least be BARELY intonated. However, I don't like D'Addario XLs and these ones were also quite light gauge so the B-string was much too floppy for my taste.
First I tried replacing them with Thomastik Infeldt Superalloy. No chance, the E-string was VERY flat in the 12th fret even with the saddle all the way forward (to the point where the adjustment screw came loose!). I very nearly returned the bass for a refund at this point but I've used the Superalloys on many other basses before and knew the E-string saddle needs to be adjusted closer to the neck than most string for perfect intonation.
So I gave the bass another chance with GHS Pressurewounds. I now managed to intonate the bass just barely. But the E-string saddle had to be moved so far forward that it was out of the "grooves" in the baseplate, meaning it could now move sideways. With the support of the A+B saddles on each side plus the downward force from the string this turned out to not be a problem but still, this is NOT acceptable on a bass in this price range.
To make matters worse I've experienced this same problem in another Ibanez Premium model that uses these mono-rail saddles. Because of this I specifically asked Thomann to check intonation before shipping the bass. Thomann agreed to do this as long as I left a note about it in the comments field during checkout. Which I did but apparently someone didn't do their job because they simply shipped the bass without checking. VERY POOR THOMANN!!!
There's clearly an issue with the placement of these mono-rail bridges on several Ibanez models. The bridge can't even be re-installed closer to the neck because the mono-rails are mounted in recessed routings in the body. Not that I would find moving the bridge an acceptable solution on a brand new bass anyway but even if I did it would be impossible here.
I was really torn whether I should return the bass or not. It's such a hassle to return items from outside the EU with all the customs paperwork so I decided to keep it. After all, the bass sounds great with the GHS Pressurewounds and I've sure there are other strings it can be intonated with too but DEFINITELY NOT ALL. This really is unacceptable in this price range. In fact, it would have been unacceptable on a cheap Squier too.
Ok, lets take a look at the rest:
Setup:
Absolutely horrible. The bass came with a tag saying it had been inspected by the Ibanez Service Team in Germany. Whoever did the inspection must have had a bad day. Like I mentioned before the intonation was way off. The string spacing was even worse (each saddle can be adjusted sideways). It was bad enough that even a casual glance in the direction of this bass should have caused alarm bells to ring! The truss rod needed to be loosened more than a whole turn for normal relief and to be playable without severe fret buzz. The pickups were also set completely wrong. They were heavily slanted upwards towards the B-string to the point where the B-string practically touched the pickup when fretting the last fret. As a result of this the E and B-strings sounded completely choked, distorted and boomy.
A slight truss rod adjustment is normal after shipping but this was pretty extreme! And the intonation + string spacing + pickup height is simply unforgivable. Still, nothing that couldn't be fixed with a proper setup so no big deal. Just very, very underwhelming for a bass that was supposedly inspected in Germany. And in this price range I would honestly have expected the bass to have left the factory with a halfway decent setup too.
Features:
Very good. Bass, mid, treble knobs. Volume+blend knobs. 3-way mid frequency selector switch. Active/passive switch. The treble knob works as a passive tone control in passive mode. The center position in active mode is actually fully open tone in passive mode. This is a very convenient feature as it causes less extreme changes in tone when going from active to passive at typical settings. Nice touch!
Neck/fretwork.
Decent, but not great. Even with a proper setup there was some fretbuzz at 5-8th fret on the A-string. It will need some fret levelling to be perfect. It's far from the worst I've seen but I would have expected slightly better in this price range. Except for this the neck feels great and plays like a dream.
General craftsmanship:
Very good. The fit and finish is flawless (except for the previously mentioned bridge position). The wood selection is amazing and the bass looks absolutely gorgeous. I usually prefer 4-string vintage passive basses and a bass like this is a bit of a "guilty pleasure" for me. I decided that if I should buy a "modern" type of bass I might as well get the most outrageously gaudy looking one out there. It does look BEAUTIFUL but there is an element of bad taste here as well. Like how dictators seem to love gold curtains. Or to put it another way: If they had been into abstract art in the baroque era this is probably how all those baroque cathedrals would have looked. Insanely over the top and borderline tasteless. But I love it! To be fair the shade of blue is slightly darker and more understated in real life than on any pictures I've seen so it's actually more elegant and tasteful looking than I had expected.
The sound:
The Nordstrand Big Singles pickup have a very distinct tone that may not be for everyone but I really like them. They are very different from my usual fare of more or less quirky vintage basses but they sound great. Tight lows, aggressive midrange bite, maybe bordeline harsh highs but not too bad. The onboard preamp is very flexible and lots of different tones can be achieved. Typically for Ibanez there is this midrange "honk" that can't quite be dialled out without completely ruining the tone but this isn't necessarily bad. More a matter of personal taste. Lowering the treble knob to soften the highs in active mode doesn't work quite as well as I had wanted though. The treble knob seems to act a little too far down the frequency spectrum for my liking. Anything more than a VERY a slight cut causes the sound to get a bit dull and lose presence. But the strings I'm using are still quite new so I'm sure the highs will mellow out by themselves over time. Still, I can't help feeling that the preamp could have been better. The cheaper Ibanez SR-models have seen huge improvements in preamps in later years and somehow it feels like these more expensive ones could do with an upgrade. There are far better preamps available these days. The bass does sound great though so I'm really just nitpicking here.
The only real negative would be that the bass does pick up a bit of noise when not running both pickups blended but this is the nature of single coils. As far as single coils go this is one of the less noisy basses I've encountered so they've done a great job with shielding.
Accessories:
A gigbag and a very nice multi-wrench tool. Not exactly "gigbag candy" extravaganza but decent enough. I would perhaps have expected a LITTLE more in this price range but it seems to be the trend these days that only +2000 Euro instruments get a lot of nice extra stuff.
To sum it up:
I can accept poor setup but the issue with the bridge is frankly unacceptable. I would have given this bass top ratings if it wasn't for this problem but it's such a serious flaw in the design that my ratings will suffer badly from it. After much consideration I decided to keep the bass because it sounds great and plays very nicely. I could after all get it properly intonated (barely) with the E-saddle out of it's grooves but be aware that the selection of strings that will work with this bass is severely limited.
If you can live with this it's a great bass for sure. But unfortunately it is also seriously flawed.
