cangaroo wrote:
IMO the neck "problems" are related to the fact that the nut is cut too high.
My 2008 4003 had he same problem, but you could easily get rid of by lowering a bit the holes in the nut. Without doing this it's almost impossible to have a very low action with straight neck (as suggested by owner manual).
Maybe this is due to the fact that in lefty production, they had to do manually some tasks done by machine in the right version.
Just my 2 cents
As Matt said, that was only a part of my problem... the bass I purchased had several issues that were fairly easy to fix, poorly cut nut being one of them.
However, a neck that has a forward bow on the bass side and a back bow on the treble side and a ski jump past the 12th fret, well... that has nothing to do with the nut.
Pardon my far-reaching insurance analogy here, but, to me, I think that the factory knows about these "dud" basses... but if they can save a few bucks by applying some old fashioned "risk assessment" to each bass that comes of the line, then they're happy.
Fret guy goes to his supervisor and says, "Hey boss... this fingerboard has a hump in it."
Boss takes a look and thinks, "Well, that hump is pretty bad, but not bad enough to go backwards in production to have the fingerboard re-planed. We'll save $XXX.XX dollars if we try to hide it with a decent fret job, and the odds that whoever buys this bass will never notice the hump are in our favor."
Bass gets fretted, finished and goes out the door... and the number of basses that come back for warranty work are FAR LESS than the number of basses that left the factory that needed work in the first place. That saves them A LOT of money.
I mentioned this to Matt in our conversations, but I'll repeat it to you guys... there was a guy on another forum who was complaining about the cost of Sadowsky basses... he was saying that all they are is an overpriced Fender.
Roger Sadowsky chimed in and said that the difference between his basses and other less expensive basses that look the same is that every single step of his manufacturing and QC process is under incredible scrutiny, and he expects near-perfection in every single part of the process. Where some companies might have neck joints with huge gaps and unlevel fingerboards... imperfections that are covered up with a decent fret job and OK setup... his neck joints are tight with no gaps, his fingerboards nearly-perfectly level and his fret jobs are immaculate... every single step of his manufacturing process is given full attention to detail and every single tiny part of every one of his basses gets all the attention it needs to make a great bass. THAT'S what you're paying for.
For me, I'd much rather pay more for a bass I know has received that kind of attention and treatment than paying less for one and just "making it work."
If Ric is all backed up on orders and manufacturing and QC is suffering because of it, then they should raise their prices in order to maintain the quality people expect when they purchase one of their basses.
