So the Sire jazz bass didn’t arrive until Thursday. The outer shipping box was so damaged that its contents were not far from dropping out of it. Fortunately the inner, Sire-branded box within was in pristine shape. First thing I notice is that it’s gorgeous. The roasted maple neck and those block markers are stunning. Second thing I notice is that it’s no lightweight. That alder body gets this guitar up to 9 pounds. Which isn’t a boat anchor. But there will be no neck dive issues, that’s for sure.
Once I got it home and plugged it into the big rig I discovered that it sounds exactly like you want a jazz bass to sound. What is that sound? I struggle to describe it. A p-bass sound is what I consider “thump +.” The thump is just the beefy fundamental bottom end. The plus is a sweet timber of fret noise on the attack. It’s unmistakeable and to me is the very definition of a p-bass sound. But the jazz bass has a broader spectrum of frequency response, lows, mids, and highs. The bridge pickup helps give a burpy pop to each note. In any case, the Sire has that sound in spades.
I was able to do a setup on it today. From the factory, the neck relief was 8 and the strings a bit high for me. In the end I settled on a neck relief of 11 and string heights ranging from 5/64ths to 4/64ths of an inch. This does get me firmly into what Scott Devine calls the “rasp” territory. I love it.
So, after playing it, doing a setup, and owning it for about 48 hours, the facts are these: it looks great, plays great, and it sounds great. I feel like I just paid $400 and received a $700 guitar. I can see myself hanging onto this one for a long, long time.