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I have this identical bass at home, and I highly recommend it. Nice price too. I really love the necks on these MTD Kingstons. This preamp/ pickup pairing in the Heir sounds much better than the soapbars in the Kingston Z, IMHO

How is the pickup blend/pan control on these basses? One thing I don't like about the Z series is you're either all on bridge, neck, or both when you adjust the pan control with no subtle blending of pickup levels.

I'll take a look at mine when I get home...

PJ, I tested the blend knob on both the Heir and Z, and I got some subtle blending in both cases; it seems somewhat more responsive on the Heir but that could be down to the difference in the pickups (and "tap testing" directly on poles vs. wood covers). I believe both basses have the same preamp--which isn't great, but definitely seems better matched to the Heir.

Just curious- what EQ settings are you running on your Z? My best "baseline" setting is: Treble at 1/4, Mid at 3/4, Bass at 1/2 (in each case 1/2= center position), then add or subtract in small increments depending on what amp I'm using. It took me awhile to get used to the idea of starting with so much Mid as that's not my usual M.O., but it seems to work best for the Z to start from the mid-lows and go from there.

Neither the Heir or the Z sound as good as this black custom job, with Bartolini MM pickup/ preamp. Much more natural low end punch with better definiton and clarity-- but the Heir is definitely closer than the Z in this regard.

Nice Kingston. I've heard good things about those. Do they have a Stingray-esque tone?

FYI, Auction ended with no bids. Was $450 too high for that?

"Just curious- what EQ settings are you running on your Z? My best "baseline" setting is: Treble at 1/4, Mid at 3/4, Bass at 1/2 (in each case 1/2= center position), then add or subtract in small increments depending on what amp I'm using. It took me awhile to get used to the idea of starting with so much Mid as that's not my usual M.O., but it seems to work best for the Z to start from the mid-lows and go from there."

I haven't used my Z bass in a band setting yet, primarily in bedroom headphone setups and just soloed through my amp. Decided to put it through the tests again after reading this post.

There is no subtle taper or blend of PUPs on mine, PUPs are either all on or or off. In the center detent setting, both are on, but as soon as you start dialing clockwise or counter-clockwise you get only a soloed neck or bridge PUP respectively. Regarding your EQ comments, I'm not sure what you mean by, "treble at 1/4"" as it relates to my bass. Do you mean a 1/4 boost beyond flat, or 1/4 from zero? I understand you on a typical 3 band EQ bass (like a Stingray), and I expected my Z to work the same way with the ability to cut/boost EQ, but on mine I find the tones fairly useless and thin UNLESS the 3 band EQ is boosted. Flat setting and anything below/cut is really thin/weak. I usually set my amp flat first when testing basses, but with this bass any setting flat or below would require additional boosting of frequencies on my amp. Depending on the PUP setting I'm using, I'm finding a 1/4 treble boost, 1/2 bass boost, zero-1/4 mids boost best for 2 PUP slap tones. For walking fat "P-bass" tones, perhaps 1/4 treble, 1/4 mids, 1/4 bass, while the bridge PUP soloed might be zero-1/4 treble, zero mids, 1/2-3/4 bass boost.

Carmine, did you get yours new or used? Is it possible somebody upgraded the pots etc. on yours? I may change the pots and preamp. I'm not sure about the PUPs yet. I got mine new through an ebay dealer cheap (now I know why. ). I'm being harsh though. There are a few things I really like about the bass. Lightweight, very comfy neck, Buzz Feiten system (which DOES make a difference) tight response, etc.

PJ, Thanks for the kind words on the Kingston. I've heard good things about the stock version too, but mine had been extensively modded before I got it, so hard to say how Stingray-esque the tone may have been. The Bart preamp and pickup are far better sounding to me than my Stingray- but then again I'm not really the biggest fan of the Stingray tone anyway.

I was really surprised to see the Heir auction ended with no bids. $450 was a very sweet price given that they go for $899 new.

Here's a pic of my Z....I still can't figure out your blend knob issue--I got my Heir and my Z new so there was no upgrade of the pots etc. on either one. Regarding my EQ comments, all my adjustments were from zero (so in other words, flat= 1/2). Translated to your cut/boost terminology, my settings are Treble at 1/4 cut, Mid at 1/4 boost, Bass at flat-- so as you can see although I started out boosting a lot more, I'm now finding I'm getting better tone running a lot less boost than you. I'm gonna try giving your settings a spin to compare.

Holy moly, just got a single pickup model like the black one above. The thing has amazing playability and sounds great. Buy one.