Samick Custom Active 5

Made in the 90s (closest I can figure out). I saw another one very similar for sale, 2nd hand and the guy said it was 8 years old (in 2005), so that makes it around 1997.
2 vol controls and a tone control, with a push-pull switch for selecting active/passive. 3-position switch for pickup selection.
Active circuitry, runs on a 9V battery (which lasts ages. I've left it switched on for days and forgotten about it sometimes).
My beasty is black with a nice, glossy finish and has very little signs of wear and tear for something of this age. Maple body & maple/ebony neck.
Has top-mounted strings, gold coloured hardware, which has only minor tarnishing. Tuners are non-locking, Samick brand. Long scale and fat frets.

Sounds great, whatever you're playing. Good range from the tone control, and switching different combination of pickups also adds to variety.
I tend to use a pick as much as fingers, and play more guitar-style, rock and blues sounds.
My amp is a Vox T-60, with 4-channel EQ and the 'Bassilator' switch. My other amp is a Marshall 7200 DBS, which gives you just as much tone selection with the graphic-eq, and also has loads of power. Combine either of these with the tone control on the bass and the active circuitry, you can get anything between nice bright sounds or lowdown and mushy. Excellent sound at low or high levels.
I also use a Zoom 506 pedal for various effects and that just gives you a million more options too.
Used on active, it can be pretty sensitive and pick up noise if you're using lots of gain on your amp, but a bit of shielding around the active board helps reduce that (An easy mod: wrap the preamp board in a plastic bag, then some tinfoil around the outside, connected to ground).

Only one drawback is I can't adjust the action easily. If I wanted, I could add some washers and bring it down. In any case, everything is straight and strong, and I don't get any fret buzz, even down past 12th fret.
I'm used to playing with lots of action and the notes ring on and on and on and the sound is great, so why change it?

I'd say it's good for gigs, or studio.
The body, neck and hardware are all solid and can handle the knocks. It has been looked after (read: 'No end-of-set thrashing') and nothing has fallen off, come unscrewed or broken either. Quite a heavy bass, so get a decent strap and you'll have no problems :)
It has a nice, hard finish, and no chips at all, which is pretty impressive, considering it's probably around 10 years old.
Not sure on the neck adjustment. Maybe I am missing something there (?)

Never dealt with the company or repair people for this. If I need to do repairs, it'll be a new output socket or a new switch, maybe.

I picked up bass about 6 months ago and learnt on this one. I'd like to adjust the action and see how it plays, out of curiosity.
I keep looking around for something to upgrade to, but haven't seen anything in my price range that appeals enough. When I do, I think I'll be keeping this one anyway.
This is a kick-ass, good-looking, solid bass that sounds excellent. My reason for upgrading would be if I had lots of extra money and wanted a new Thunderbird :)
If it was stolen, I'd track down the thief, hit him over the head with it and play on!

i the hell don't know when and where was this bas made.
it has 24 frets, 5 strings it has two volume controls - one for each pickup and one treble control. it also has 3-position swich p,both or single coil pickup comination. it has active/passive push-pull swich that is also a treble control. maple body an neck is maple with ebony. finish is unique, green,red,orange,yellow all mixed together. it has a yamaha rbx but little more curved on the top - body stlye.
tuners are excelent - samick. long scale, fat frets.

great sound with tons of possibilities - form harris like high with low to only flowing bass , jazz, blues, balck sabbath sound, anything you can imagine and discover with this tone machine. when you punch treble to the bottom and p-pick to the 9 , you've got a slap-god. I use Yamaha 115 sinus amp and it really rocks, blueses, metals... :-)
With the equaliser you can yust play for days with this bass. in is notecably noisy when it is on acitve - only if your hands aren't on the strings - but it can be fixeda, and it will be. it has exceletn variety of sounds. for studio i use passive adn for stage active and passive.

i had to ajust the neck, picks and strings. the hardware is gold but has the traces of time - screws especialy - i need t ohave them replaced. excelent qualitiy wood. every othe thing is excelent

I play only this bass on gigs....
nothing more to say about it.
It fell more than few times and there are only few little scracthes on it. ti is one of the best basses that all the bend of our age have in my town....

i played it for 1 year. i have ibanez bass efects, yamaha 115W RMS
if someone stole this axe from me i would chase him to the end of the world :-). it is in the rang with fender's jazz deluxe 5 string , it hase the same feeling when you play it but a little diferent tone... a little har to beleve but it is like that, btw, it's real price is 800$ - I bought if for less than 200$ = 1800 HRK what's whola lotta less then fender jazz 5-stirng deluxe.