Jackson X Series Spectra Bass IV DPM

This bass is superb in all aspects.

It's comfortably light, the weight distribution means theres no neck dive, and the slim neck feels great to play on. It looks absolutely stunning, with its shiny purple finish (which also has a slight sparkle to it if you look closely). It looks even better than online as it's slightly darker and cosmic-looking in person. The finish is applied all over the body and the back of the neck which I find quite stylish.

Although I'll likely be replacing them with Elixirs at some point, the strings that come with it feel and sound pretty good. I did have to adjust the action for it to play well when I got it, but as long as you make sure to use the included Allen keys there shouldn't be any issue.

The sound is also amazing on it. With 2 high quality humbuckers, the option to split them into single coils and a 3 band active eq (which can be bypassed with the push/pull volume knob), it has a lovely powerful and versatile sound. I mostly play rock and metal, and use a few different sounds for different songs, but with the variety of tonal options you could realistically use this for any genre. I find a lot of bass guitars with this quality to be geared towards a certain style of music to the point it's difficult to do much else, but this guitar will really work for anything. It also uses a master volume and blend knob as oppose to a more typical 2 volume knobs, and theres notches in every knob except the master volume so you know when everything's in the middle. I find this control scheme very easy to work with.

Another bonus is the compartment for the 9V battery is closed by a clip rather than a screw so swapping the battery is as easy as possible. It also comes with an instruction manual if you need help with any part of setup.

Overall, I can't really think of anything that this guitar lacks. It is incredible in sound, versatility, feel, build quality and look, and you would struggle to find a better bass at a realistic price point.

The bad: I ordered this E-Bass and it arrived with problems concerning the input jack. The bridge was also a bit problematic and the worst of all was the fret buzz.

The good: As always, thomann has the best customer service and I could send it back to have it repaired. The bass has a really nice sound (that is why the rating is so high) and a very comfortable neck. It is similar to the neck of the Ibanez E-Basses. Very slick and fast. I would recommend this E-Bass, even though the initial experience was not the best.