SX SJB 57

Jazz bass style bass guitar. Brand new, so I presume made in the last year or 2. Sunburst finish, 4 string, Maple neck, Alder body, jazz bass style, 2 single coil passive pups, large fender style tuners, Alder body.

I think this sounds very similar to a jazz bass from Fender. A lot of people think of buying a cheap bass because they want to add better pickups. Well, to me, this bass doesn't need new pickups. I think it would be a waste of money, because it already has a variety of sounds, and I am able to dial into sounds that make me say "Yeah! that's just the sound I need."
You can get a very well defined non-muddy, non-blurry, non-wimpy sound out of this bass. There are sounds that fit the southern rock, country rock, blues rock and pop genres very well. Its difficult to describe sound, but I'd say its very warm rich full and punchy. I have an Ibanez that, while it is not as warm or loud as this SX bass, has more bite, almost like a Rickenbaker.

It has great action and frets do not have problems. I was surprised that this one needed very little adjustment. The frets are well trimmed.
The 5 string SX bass I got about 2 years ago needed far more adjustment than this one, yet I still considered it a great deal.

This bass seems like a very sturdy instrument all around. I'd go ahead and use it without a backup, but understand, strings can break on any guitar, whether bass guitar or regular guitar. So especially for guitars, you should always have a backup at any gig you consider important for whatever reason.

Unknown except by hearsay. I've read pretty good things about the supplier.

After a few years experience browsing for cheap bass guitars on the internet (I find myself doing this frequently), especially ebay, I'm pretty sure this is one of the top quality bass guitars out there for the price, and possibly it is the very top quality bass for the price.
I love the Fender Jazz bass for both its playability, sound quality, and looks. the Jazz bass is legendary, used by a barrage of players in a wide range of styles. This SX bass pretty much fits the bill of a jazz bass at a way lower price, so I really love this bass.
A really good bass like this helps inspire my playing, because I truly love the experience of playing it. The only problem I have though is that now I'm getting older, and its not real heavy, but I wish it was about 1-2 pounds lighter.

This is a short-scale (30") 4-string Jazz style, made in China (2006). Originally came with two volumes and a tone and dual single-coil J pups of low quality. Mine has a natural ash body, maple fretboard with block inlays, W/B/W pickguard. Standard chrome hardware. Did not come with a case of any kind, it just shipped in a carton though it was packed well. It's equipped as most any other jazz-type is, so I'm giving features a 9. One point off for no active electronics. Not that I expected any at this price point, this rating is only for "features", so it can't be a 10.

This is a "before and after" review ...

BEFORE:

The original pickups were weak and noisy. There was no sheilding in the control cavity at all. The volume and tone controls didn't work well. Let's face it, this is an entry-level bass, but since nobody else makes short-scale J-style basses (except custom luthiers if you want to pay the big buck), this was the one I went with. The bridge is also a weak point and notes are somewhat dull as a result, but I'll be replacing that eventually.

I'm giving "before" a rating of 2.

AFTER:

I replaced the pickups with a set of Bartolini 9CBJD1 humbucking pickups, replaced all electronic components with an unusual control design of my own, and fully sheilded the control and pickup cavities and the underside of the pickguard. Instead of passive volume/volume/tone, I now have passive volume/pan/tone. I didn't use a standard 6-point panpot though. Instead, I used a 50K linear pot with a center detent to pan between the pickups. Volume is a 500K audio taper, tone is a 500K linear taper. As I have it wired, the pan control gives me a more controllable mix between the pickups than I could get from a standard 6-point pan pot. To my ears, those pan pots are notorious for being closer to an on/off switch than a pan. While this wiring scheme reduces available pickup output just a little bit, it also reduces overall resistance to ground because there are only two pots to ground now instead of three. Output is largely the same as it would be if wired normally, and I get better pan control. It's a win-win situation, as far as I'm concerned.

Once modified, the bass sounds absolutely wonderful. No noise whatsoever. The pickups, controls, knobs, sheilding, and whatever else nearly cost as much as the bass itself, but it was very well worth it. Now I have a bass that sounds great and plays very well. I have smaller hands, and finding a short-scale J-bass to begin with was a surprise. Low notes sound full with these pickups, though not as full as a 34"-scale would. That is to be expected, but I easily compensated for it with my amp's tone controls. I run my rig through a 31-band EQ anyway, so I'm able to get a nice, round, low sound out of it. I have the sound I want, and the scale I want. This bass replaced a $2,000 custom-made short scale bass, which I sold after putting this bass together. It turns out the modified SX is more versatile than the custom bass I had. All in all I'm very, very pleased with how it sounds.

I'm give this bass an "AFTER" rating of 10, because it sounds just like I wanted it to sound.

However, since these reviews are meant to indicate what one thinks about an item as it is when purchased, my rating remains 2. These are great basses to upgrade though, so don't let that rating turn you off if you're planning to upgrade one as I did. There's plenty to work with, that's for sure.

This is pretty good, considering its price point. The body and neck are well finished. Hardware quality is decent, though I recommend upgrading the bridge (and possibly tuners) at some point. The pickguard, though it looks ok, needed to be shaved a bit to install the new pickups. (The screw cutouts were off a little bit.) The block inlays look decent and seem to be well attached. The frets, though not dressed as well as more expensive basses, were very playable out of the box. All in all, not that bad.

It will hold up, I'm confident about that. In fact, I've been using for almost a year without any problems. (This is after I modified it, of course.)

I bought it, they sent it. I haven't needed customer support, so I can't offer any opinion here.

My overall rating is a bit tricky. As received, the bass was seriously lacking sound-wise, but it looked nice and played very well. After mods it is almost perfect. Again, since this review is for how I got it, I'm giving it a 5, but don't let that rating scare you. If you want a foundation with which to put together a nice bass that will last you years and sound great, get one. If you're a beginner or young or have small hands, you can't go wrong. If you want perfection, look elsewhere. This bass is what it is. Turns out it was a great choice for me. No regrets at all.

Got the natural finish, 4 string, jass bass style, 3 single coil pups, big honkin tuners, passive, no frills.

I own 3 bases, a p-bass copy by Cortez, and a Peavey active 5 string of which I don't recall model number or name. This SX bass sounds better than em all. I replaced the pups in the Cortez with quarter pounders and this SX still sounds better. Fat and jazzy sounding. Don't know how it stacks up against a real American jazz, but it sounds good to me. I have not played a Fender jazz for years, and from what I can remember, this sounds as good.

As expected, had to lower strings. Neck was good and straight

I have had it for only a short time, but it seems like it would last a long long time.

Rondo Music; simply the best there is.

For quality vs. price, it gets an 11. but this only goes to 10.

Everything has been said, standard jazz clone. Pickups are suprisingly decent, as are tuners. The bridge suffers from the weaknesses as a MIM fender. Overall very good qualite

Very nice, It has a lot of treble for a jazz bass, and if you like to slap with steel strings with distortion, you will end up with an incredible harsh tone that actually works quite well for death metal(hint).

If you play normally, just cut the treble a bit to really sound good.

Action was ok, but the truss rod was perfect. The bass needs a few treaks here and there to really shine, but other wise it's fine. It has very nice finish, and the neck is perfectly done. The pots are a bit noisy though, so points off for that.

Very Good for such a inexpensive bass, my only problems were that one of the knobs broke off in shipping, and after emailing kurt, he sent me a new one free of charge.

Very friendly, Kurt is always there to help, and responds almost instantly.

Been playing for around five years, guitar for 3 before that, and the various band instruments for 4 before that. This bas is quite simply the perfect starter instrument, and has more than enough quality for intermediate and even advanced players. This is also the perfect moding bass, for the many people that love to customize every aspect of their instrument till it's perfect, as 150 leaves a lot of room to play around with. BUY THIS.

Made in China in 2006. It's essentially a Jazz Bass knock-off. The body is three-piece ash, which is a pleasant surprise for an instrument in this price range---most of the competitors are made of plywood or pressed wood fiber. Mine has a black finish with a maple board and neck finished in a thick, slightly too-orange 'vintage' finish.

Hardware is standard Fender-like stuff. Two Jazz pickups, two volume and one tone control for the electronics suite. The tuners function smoothly and keep the bass in tune, and it has a faithful copy of that miserable Fender bent-tin bridge, which works well enough for keeping the strings attached to the body.

It sounded like a decent Jazz Bass right out of the box---nice growl, and the bridge pickup had a nice bark to it when soloed. The overall tone was good, with the mids lacking a bit.

This is the major shortfall. The factory has to cut corners somewhere to sell these things for such a low price, and fit and finish suffer accordingly. Right out of the box it needed a truss rod adjustment to lower the action; pickup height adjustment to get an even balance from each string, and bridge intonation to play in tune. The fret ends were a bit rough, as were the crowns. A little work with an emory board did the trick.

To be fair, the dealer sells boat-loads of these basses, still fresh in the factory packing (which is quite good---lots of cushioning and good quality boxes). In this price range, I don't expect a shop set-up.

It's a tank. I've gigged it, and have no problem playing it as my main bass. Having said that, I always bring a backup bass to practice and gigs.

I bought my SX online from Rondo Music. I haven't had any reason to contact the dealer for any problems, hence my No Opinion rating.

OK, here's the caveat: I based this review on the bass as-is, direct from the dealer. Having said that, here are the mods I've done:

New bridge (Gotoh 201)
New pickups (Fender Vintage '60s Jazz Bass)
New 250K pots

The mods put the bass in an entirely new category. A stock SX is a great bass for the money. A modded SX is a great bass, period.

I've been playing classic rock, blues and country since 1977. The SX is rubbing shoulders with a '74 Ric 4001, a '90s Gibson T-bird, a defretted '62 Jazz reissue, and a '70s Frankenstein P-bass. I play all through a Traynor YBA 200 head and Avatar 1x15 Neo and 2x10 Neo cabs. The SX holds it's own with this lot.

I probably wouldn't replace the bass, as I already have a couple Fenders. I bought it on a whim, and had fun modding it.

What do I love? It's a decent bass for an incredibly cheap price, and it's fun and easy to mod. I'd recommend it as a first bass for beginners, and as a backup or main instrument for more experienced players.

Made in China in 2005. Looks like a Fender Jazz bass with the exception of a slightly modified headstock. Solid alder body and solid maple neck with maple fretboard. Black (plastic?) dot inlay position markers on the fretboard. Volume/volume/tone controls. The control pot knows are solid metal with knurled, chrome finish. Two pickups that are standard Jazz bass size, meaning bridge pickup is slightly longer than the neck pickup. This is nice because you can switch pickups with nearly any brand replacement.

The bridge is stamped metal; nothing fancy and maybe even a bit thin metal, but does the job. The saddle adjustment screws operate smoothly. The tuners are open gear with elephant ear keys. Again, they don't appear of the highest quality but they hold tune and I have not experienced any slippage.

The nut is 1-9/16" so is almost as narrow as a Fender Jazz but not as wide as a Precision. Neck scale is 34".

My bass is Lake Placid Blue color and appears nicely applied with no runs or sags in the paint.

The bass sounds like a Jazz. The stock pickups are good; not great but passable. Again, the pickups are standard Jazz sizes so easy to replace if so desired.

Out of the box (literally) the action was high. The neck was adjusted properly but the saddles were set tall. This was an easy "fix" and the action was quickly set to my preference, which is low. A hex key (Allen wrench) was provided for the saddle screws and the truss rod. I did turn the truss rod a bit to see if it worked and no problem there. The pickups were factory adjusted just fine, with the G-string end of each slightly higher than the E-string end. I removed the control plate to check out the pots and wiring. Small pots that might or might not last (they work fine at this time). The wiring/soldering appeared adquately done.

The bass is solid. There is little to go wrong if any basic care and maintenance is provided. The volume/tone pots appear cheap and might fail sooner than expected, but I can't say that as fact.

I wouldn't expect any support from the builder in China. The USA dealer that I bought from is www.rondomusic.net and they are very customer oriented. I would expect short term support from Rondo if the instrument was defected, but after a month or two I wouldn't anticipate receiving support from them, which seems fair. I would rate support from the builder as 0 and from Rondo 10.

I bought the bass to be a project instrument. I played it on a few gigs and it worked fine. The tone was good but not stellar. As far as playability I've played some USA and Japanese-built Fender Jazz basses that were no better than the SX. Then again, I've played some that were better. My project involved:
1. Leveling the frets. They were in good shape from the factory but I wanted to be sure this was as good as possible (or as good as I could make it).
2. Reshaped the back of the neck to a V profile. I've never played a V profile bass neck before, but have played guitars with such a neck. I like the feel of the V profile so put the file, sandpaper, etc., to work. It turned out surprisingly well considering I'm not a luthier or even much of a woodworker.
3. Used graphite paint to shield the cavities for pickups and controls.
4. Replace pickups with Fender Jazz Noiseless. No doubt, this is an improvement over the stock pickups.
5. Replaced the control pots with higher quality (CTS or Alpha, I forget which).

Frankly, I've now got a very playable and excellent sounding Jazz bass that is solid and looks good, all for less than $250. I would rate the stock bass as 8 overall, taking into consideration the low price paid. I rate the upgraded bass as 10.