After much delay, deliberation, nearly sending it back and exchanging it for a Ray5, I have opted to keep it. I tweaked the truss and saddles and it plays nicely.
First impressions: The colour is what drew me to this. I had to have it. I mean HAD TO. I had tried the black one when they originally hit the shops, almost bought a honeyburst, and various other distractions got in the way. Then I saw the Trans Blue Satin and fell in love. This is a good bass, and when you consider I paid £250 for an active bass which apes the Stingray sound pretty well, it's....well it's madness. This should retail for £400 and I got it for £250 NEW from Thomann. New strings and .0000 steel wool down the neck and we have ourselves a beast.
The preamp is a bit hot, especially over the E. This issue has existed with these basses since day one. Sterling are fully aware of it, and yet still make them this way. I find that very odd. Anyway, some say to lower the pup and others say to fix the preamp. Others say to swap out the preamp. I will lower the pickup for now, and in the future I will probably upgrade either the preamp, the pickup or both - as I said on Tom's NBD, the Aguilar AG M4 and OBP-3 are what I would go for, but would cost almost as much as the bass did. Anyway, here she is: (sorry about the pics, they're all reversed for some reason)