Not to mention basically all of Rush.
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My Generation, or my inspiration, British Steel
One thing I don’t like is the hum, but they make pickups with phantom coils and I will give that a shot one day. Probably get a Sire V3 for around $350, has the same preamp as the V7, and add in some upgraded pickups with phantom coils. On my radar
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Or do it with a Sire M2 - I don’t have a dual humbucker bass and it would add to my sound profiles, and there are some cool soapbars out there.
My first bass was a squier PJ, so looking to try something else. How’s the Sire V7 feel? Any neck dive on it? My Squier was a bit top heavy - it was a cheapie.
The possible fret work turns me off a bit, although if I’m replacing the pick up I’ll already have the strings off so probably not too much more work. And, yeah, unfortunately a lot of things tend to be more expensive here - bottom of the world in terms of shipping, that along with being a smaller market makes for less economy-of-scale for suppliers I suppose. Maybe I wait until we can travel again and I’ll come to the US and have my very own GC experience 
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Thanks, I’ll check it out. I wish we had a Reverb type of set up here (I think we can buy off it but the shipping is criminal). I check FB marketplace quite a bit, but I’m a bit shy of buying off there.
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Yeah I was bein overly dramatic, and joking, sort of. I really hate the teardrop not on a stingray, but anybody is certainly entitled to do whatever they want with their basses, and make them look cool to themselves, so you did nothing wrong in my eyes, even if it may have seemed like I was saying that.
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I know nothing of the Sire’s, aside from people like them.
But, I think if you want something in contrast to your Ibanez, then the Ray4 is a better fit, since it has a single Humbucker, and your Ibanez has two slab bar pick ups, which are not quite Jazz pick ups like on the sire, but it will be closer in tonal range to the Sire then the Ray4.
And there are pick up upgrades that are just fine that cost only $50 US
Kent Armstrong has great pick ups (well, very good at least) for $50 on reverb.
You can pay high dollar or mid grade, or low dollar, and as long as you get rid of the stock one, you. Should be happy with what you got.
Like I said I know nothing of the Sire’s, so I can’t really speak to them good or bad
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Actually the pickups on his Ibanez probably blow away anything under $1k (or more). They are custom Nordstrand Split-Coils specially designed for Ibanez. Probably some of the best pups you can buy for anything near a reasonable price, and likely closer to P’s than J’s. Like a thumpy P while retaining single-coil growl.
They sound awesome:
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Fair enough. Sitting down there is a bit of neckdive, but it is much better than my Fender Jazz in that regard. Standing with a 2" strap on, none at all.
Neck feels very good, the rolled frets really feels nice. Really feels nicer than my Black Player Jazz. My blue player Jazz is about equal neck wise, but it is a magnificent instrument and I think the high end out of Mexico. Maybe because its a limited edition.
The electronics on the V7 are nice. It was easy to scoop out the mids, and with the sweep on the mids easy to dial in to a funky sound, think it would slap nice if I had the technique down.
Also could dial into a more rock sound - working on My Sharona at the moment.
Things I don’t like - the placement of the active/passive switch. It’s a really awkward spot. The other knobs are fine. There are two stacked knobs - they function independently just fine. I like the blend pot, and all the pots (except the volume/tone) have a little hitch in the middle so easy to find neutral.
Fit and finish are top notch. Easy to tune, machine heads are smooth. It’s a little heavy, but so is the Sterling. Not uncomfortable with a 2" strap, wil have a wide strap on it soon enough (already ordered).
Bridge is normal or through body, already restrung it through body and sounds great.
The fretboard is thick, and the neck is hard maple. Feels solid without being chonky. Did I miss any points you want to know about? The pickups sound good but I haven’t explored all the sounds yet. Slight hum when active is engaged, typical of Jazz, none when she’s passive.
The white inlays don’t show up well against the light maple fingerboard, but they are really nice up close. Having the blocks over the dots is old school Jazz, which I appreciate.
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Yeah, it does sound fantastic and is very comfortable to play. I just wish I could play even a little bit like Lars Lehmann … oh well, I’ll just keep turning up each day and maybe some day. 
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I pretty much love the whole SR line. I really wanted a SR2400 for a while.
Big Yamaha and Ibanez fan here.
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That’s a very thorough review and I appreciate it. Be interested to get your views again in a couple of months when you’ve been able to spend some quality time with it and get to know it better. I feel like I’m just starting to get really comfortable with the Ibanez and it’s been about a month, I think.
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Great looking unit! I went from my chunky Squier to the beautifully elegant neck on the Ibanez … Love at first sight. But, now I’m thinking I’d like a second good bass as a contrast. But that will be it (I’ve promised) - no more after that … 
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Yeah, sadly I never found one used. And eventually realized it wasn’t enough of an upgrade from my TRBX604 to make it worth it - they are really similar basses.
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we’ll touch bass in a couple months.
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Can anyone tell me what the SUB stands for with Sterling Ray4s? I see some are SUB Ray4 and some are simply Ray4. Googled it but couldn’t find an explanation. @T_dub
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Check the Talkbass.com classifieds and troll daily. I’ve gotten many great deals there on mint basses and pedals (and no tax etc)
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They are so different. Buy both. Haha.
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I think SUB is the old line name but basically similar.
I picked up a Ray4 used from GC was $239. Had $40 credit. So super cheap. Frets so far are fine. It’s now my test bed and what I bought it for, so pickup didn’t matter. Did not like original pickup at all but the rest of the bass is a lot of bass for the money.
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