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Recent Stingray battery question


Tubster
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No, not Duracell vs Ever Ready!

hope members can clear up a couple of questions which arose from a discussion with a friend who is a prospective MM stingray purchaser. He claims that when battery goes flat, there is still usable sound. I’ve had 3 over the years and all of mine went dead. Has something changed?

second question - all mine needed screwdriver to access battery, do all models have quick change battery box?

thanks so much.

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I’m with you, I have a 2001 and as soon as the battery starts going I get very farty distorted sounds coming out and the volume drops.

I think after the early 90s they all moved over to having plastic battery boxes apart from the Classic series.

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I've only had my 2014 Stingray for a few months.

When the battery went it started to fart. If I'd continued playing with it, I assume it would have cut out pretty quickly.

It has a quick access, plastic, battery box. No screws.

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Maybe this depends on which preamp you have.

On my 3EQ with plastic battery box there is a passive signal when the battery is completely dead.  When the battery is dying you get the farty sound, but remove it and I get a weak passive signal which can be used if you have enough amp gain left.

I don't see why an active/passive switch wouldn't work. Aren't some of the USA sub basses passive with the same pickup?

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On 13 March 2020 at 00:14, Tubster said:

No, not Duracell vs Ever Ready!

hope members can clear up a couple of questions which arose from a discussion with a friend who is a prospective MM stingray purchaser. He claims that when battery goes flat, there is still usable sound. I’ve had 3 over the years and all of mine went dead. Has something changed?

second question - all mine needed screwdriver to access battery, do all models have quick change battery box?

thanks so much.

First question - I've never got usable sound out of one when the battery's failed. That said I've only had that happen two or three times in about 40 yrs and always during setting up, not in the gig. Two were 2 band, one 4 band (Bongo). 

Second question - all Musicman basses from 1996 or so have flip out battery boxes - EXCEPT Classic collection basses, including Sabres and Old Smoothies which have the chrome cover with two screws holding them on, as pre 1996 basses. The Stingray Specials have twin flip out battery boxes.  

Battery life is quite extensive - I've had my two Specials for around 18 months and they're still on their original batteries and fine. 

Edited by drTStingray
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On 13/03/2020 at 09:46, fretmeister said:

Battery dead = no sound.

Installing a bypass switch won't really help either as most of the volume from the EBMM pickup comes from the preamp - it's actually a pretty quiet pickup when wired up passively.

 

That is most definitely not true. The preamp, when flattish, has pretty much the same volume as the pickup wired passively.

But it's true that when the battery is dead, there's no usable sound coming off (edit: only ever owned 2-band ones). Unless you bypass the preamp (Iike I have done on mine).

Edited by mcnach
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