Aria or Westone

[skankdelvar]

2 hours ago, fleabag said:

I bet BBC ate it.  Am i right your Skankness ?

 

I'm not sure what happened to the Vantage because it was not long after our in-person transaction that the Bbc shed the bonds of BassChat and went far away, possibly to a farm in Wales.

 

He seemed to be a very nice, polite young man so I don't think he ate it.

[neilp]

Interesting the things people pick on with instruments. I'm an unapologetic Aria fan - I have a pair of SB100s, fretted and fretless and I love them dearly, but I also have a fretless Wal, a P bass and a Jazz bass. It would be difficult to imagine a more diverse collection of nut widths, bridge spacing and neck profiles, but in reality it makes no difference at all. I swap between them all regularly and within a second or two I'm fully acclimatised. I'm not a believer in "I must have THIS nut width and THAT fingerboard radius". Play the bass that makes the noise you need. And by the way, you missed a great bass in that SB700. No comparison with the Westone, a different league

[RhysP]

1 hour ago, skankdelvar said:

I'm not sure what happened to the Vantage because it was not long after our in-person transaction that the Bbc shed the bonds of BassChat and went far away, possibly to a farm in Wales.

He's not shacked up with John Hall is he?

Edited January 28, 2022 by RhysP

[skankdelvar]

15 minutes ago, RhysP said:

He's not shacked up with John Hall is he?

 

I suppose it's possible. Unlikely, but possible.

 

For myself, I like the idea of John Hall amending his Twitter profile to 'Ret'd musical instrument maker, hellacious scourge of counterfeiters, learning Welsh'

[RhysP]

12 minutes ago, skankdelvar said:

 

I suppose it's possible. Unlikely, but possible.

 

For myself, I like the idea of John Hall amending his Twitter profile to 'Ret'd musical instrument maker, hellacious scourge of counterfeiters, learning Welsh'

He should change his name to Ioan Llys.

 

Llys has a few different meanings in Welsh - one of them is "Hall" or "Court", another one just happens to be "Slime" or "Mucous"... 😶 

[pbelly]

On 26/01/2022 at 21:24, kodiakblair said:

Pretty sure those have been up for 2 years now 😄

 

There were 3 versions of the Thunder II , a twin split coil model then a PJ model. In 1983 the Thunder II PJ was renamed the Thunder III and the Thunder II became a medium scale (32") with 2 single coils. Each version also had the option for fretless.

 

I was £300 for this Thunder III back in Feb 2020.

 

 

I have the very Thunder II of which you speak. Heavy as a planet, but the super boomer pickups are great and it plays wonderfully with light strings (30-90s shaves a bit of weight off too ha ha). I love it and will never part with it.

[Maude]

3 hours ago, neilp said:

 And by the way, you missed a great bass in that SB700. No comparison with the Westone, a different league

 

Isn't there an SB700 for sale in the classifieds? 

[Quin]

3 hours ago, neilp said:

Interesting the things people pick on with instruments. I'm an unapologetic Aria fan - I have a pair of SB100s, fretted and fretless and I love them dearly, but I also have a fretless Wal, a P bass and a Jazz bass. It would be difficult to imagine a more diverse collection of nut widths, bridge spacing and neck profiles, but in reality it makes no difference at all. I swap between them all regularly and within a second or two I'm fully acclimatised. I'm not a believer in "I must have THIS nut width and THAT fingerboard radius". Play the bass that makes the noise you need. And by the way, you missed a great bass in that SB700. No comparison with the Westone, a different league

Well, there is an Sb elite I for sale now for 580£, how does the Sb elite I compare to the sb-700? i might just go with that then

 

[Maude]

Seller can't ship it but you may be able to sort something somehow. 

 

[neilp]

On 28/01/2022 at 20:44, Quin said:

Well, there is an Sb elite I for sale now for 580£, how does the Sb elite I compare to the sb-700? i might just go with that then

 

The quality is not quite the same as the Matsumoku basses - the bat-ear early basses are SO well built - but the Elite is a fine bass, and the neck is less "individual" if that stuff does bother you

[Bassassin]

56 minutes ago, neilp said:

The quality is not quite the same as the Matsumoku basses - the bat-ear early basses are SO well built - but the Elite is a fine bass, and the neck is less "individual" if that stuff does bother you

 The SB Elite I is a Matsumoku bass, as is the Elite II and the very similar SB-R60 and SB-R80 models.

[neilp]

5 minutes ago, Bassassin said:

 The SB Elite I is a Matsumoku bass, as is the Elite II and the very similar SB-R60 and SB-R80 models.

Not entirely sure that's true, is it? I may be wrong, but I thought the Elite I and II were built elsewhere in Japan? If not, I stand corrected, but the quality is not quite the same whatever...

[Bassassin]

59 minutes ago, neilp said:

Not entirely sure that's true, is it? I may be wrong, but I thought the Elite I and II were built elsewhere in Japan? If not, I stand corrected, but the quality is not quite the same whatever...

 

As far as I know all the SB basses were built at Matsumoku, up until the factory closed in 1987. There is room for speculation, though - there's a myth that Aria & Aria Pro II were Matsumoku-exclusive brands, but during the 70s 'copy era' there are numerous examples of instruments built by Kasuga Gakki and Fujigen Gakki, and it's quite likely other factories were used too. However with the advent of Aria's original designs, there's no evidence suggesting high-end models like the Elites & SB-Rs were built anywhere else. Given that they were built to very specific designs it would probably hard to tell - it's also a myth that Matsumoku was inherently a higher-quality manufacturer than its competitors.

 

It's possible you're thinking of the post-Matsumoku SB basses, such as the SB-ELT model which appeared in 1988/9. It's basically an Elite II/SB-R80 with some minor differences in electronics & dimensions, and it's not clear where these were made, or even if they're Japanese - they bear no serial numbers or production details. The quality is very, very high though, I have one of these and also a 1983 SB Elite I Black & Gold - they are on a par build-wise, and I'd say some of the detailing such as the fretboard inlays is tidier on the later SB-ELT.

 

With these the general consensus is that they're Japanese, and it's been suggested that Tokai Gakki undertook top-end Aria manufacture after Matsumoku closed, although I can't find any solid evidence to support that. By the time these were being made, Korean factories like Cort, Samick & Young-Chang were perfectly capable of manufacturing to as high a standard as the Japanese builders, so it's possible they're MIK.