Product: Hondo H-800 All Star Bass
Price Paid: USD 70 USED
Submitted
05/19/2009
at
04:36pm
by
Parallelcircuit
Features
:
8
Age and Ethnicity completely unknown to me, though it had to have been made in the mid-eighties or before. I bought it used, with a hard case, and have loved the crap out of it since. 20 fret, 4 string, 1 volume, 1 tone, ply body and maple neck with a maple board and a skunk-stripe! I love playing on maple fretboards, they just feel so much nicer to me when I'm messing around. As pretty much everyone who has reviewed Hondo basses on this site seems to agree, the tone knob might as well not be there; if you turn it all the way down it cuts out the sound completely, anything before that doesn't have any effect on the sound. Mine came with open gear Grover tuners that hold tune for months at a time, whether I play or not. Originally had a black finish, but there was a hole in it where a sticker had been removed by someone, so I stripped the whole thing, sanded it down, and now have one of the only clear-coat plywood basses of anyone I know.
Sound
:
10
The sound out of this thing, barring the unusable tone knob, is everything you could ask for from a P-Bass. Never any feedback problems, nice and surprisingly woody for a plywood body. It's so good I've had friends with $2000+ basses borrow it for recording sessions!
Action, Fit, & Finish
:
7
Factory set-up? I buy used guitars, so I've never had to deal with anything like that! The only flaws I can think of are:
1: The top strap button was horribly stripped in the socket, so I had to relocate it slightly to the side.
2: The output jack is mounted into the plastic pickguard/control cover. As a result by the time I got it, the cover had cracked in half right at that point and I had to rebuild that portion with epoxy. Ugly but effective!
3: The knobs for the controls didn't fit at all, and are long gone. Not sure if the ones I lost were the originals though.
Aside from that, this bass as a good action, and is very playable. Smooth truss rod, good bridge, didn't even have to shim or shave the neck to get it to play right!
Reliability/Durability
:
10
Built like a rock! Since I've fixed the small problems I had with it this thing has played like a champ. Like I said, the finish had the one hold in it, but aside from that it looked great when I got it. looks even better now that I've refinished it!
Play it without a backup? The only way this thing would ever break down on me is if I used to snowboard down a mountain!
Customer Support
:
No Opinion
How would I know?
Overall Rating
:
10
Been playing guitar about 5 years, bass a little less. Own way more gear than I need, but love it all. If this bass were stolen or lost, I'd cry a little bit, then jam on my Dyna-Bass until I felt better! My favorite feature is the maple neck, it just doesn't get any better than that! If you have an opportunity to pick up one of these basses, go for it! They're hard to find, but worth every minute of it!
