bigsmokebass

Price. Great designs, specs and seem to be constructed well but the price tags are hefty in an age of increasing prices and people’s pay grades remaining still. As per mentioned, with the likes of Sire churning out crazy good instruments and such competitive prices, they’re now becoming the status quo of what you can buy for good quality and a decent price. Harley Benton behind that, despite what initial quality control was like, are still producing crazy good instruments next to nothing.

I get you bro. On paper, I couldn't fault it as I'd love nothing more than what it listed and had potential to be: passive basses, exotic woods with hipshot tuners, monorail bridges, humbuckers and may had that fancy Spector/Warwick look for a lot less 😉😂 but alike @gafbass02said about the overall QC and flaws just really took the shine for all they could had been (not that cheap either, especially the Dave Hollingworth!) but QC had always been part of the Chapman brand. I was one of those unfortunate few who purchased the ML-2 which was a huge flop and disappointment. If they weren't returned due to poor craft, they were being sold by thomann (and I believe Andertons) as "decorative items" in the end at a knocked down rate, for potential luthiers to buy, repair and sell for profit or just to null these items being returned and costing the store/supplier/manufacturer more money. Again though, try before you buy. You might be the lucky one who finds one that passed QC or had someone repair the faults 😉👌🏻