Yeah neck through is usually heavier than bolt on version. Then again my Lignum neck through Fretless is only 7.5 lbs.
Speaking of material and tone. There’s no denying that on a Fretless’s fingerboard each material sounds different and that’s is an in your face difference. Oddly enough, my favorites are composite like Richlite, Ebonel and super (CA) glue.
That’s what I’m worried about too. If weather causes a misalignment or god forbid a warp, it’s gonna be a disaster.
Sorry if I muddied the waters - I didn’t read it at all facetious.
I took it as genuine. I was solidifying our collective agreement and handing us trophies as I also added the “hear with the eyes” bit because that’s been a saying of mine ever since being on the professional touring circuit.
We had some similar ideas and comments come up when people were asking about the real, meaningful differences between the different fender lines - squier, made-in-mexico, made-in-japan, made-in-usa, custom shop.
I love the wine experiment idea.
same team! same team!
Right on man! I wound up going down the rabbit hole a little bit on some of the other wine experiments that were done - some interesting reading!
*fist bump*
For a good neck-through bass, which price level are we talking about, as a minimum?
Well Schecter can do it at pretty crazy low price of around $800 your Cort is pretty sweet. I would not think twice about it, it would be pretty awesome.
Everything does effect everything, same in the saxophone world.
The part below the headline that folks generally get lost in is - by how much, and does it matter.
Go on a sax forum and search for the tone debate on color of lacquer sprayed on the brass horn - it is endless.
So yes everything matters, including the neck attachment type.
To me, as beginners enter this elevated pallet of tone ‘education’ thing, focusing on big tone shapers first and smaller tone shapers last, as your pallet improves is more important to me.
Strings/pickups/electronics - then everything else.
The PRS Kingfisher is just over $1000 new. I have one and it is a sweet bass. Definitely heavy though. Mine is an older brown one with beautiful wood grain. The new blue ones are nice looking too.
I had an ESP neck-through and it sounds GREAT (cause, Humbuckers!)! Should be around 800-1000€ new. I sold it for 400€ - in mint condition!
We’re bass players, we don’t really worry about such things… that’s for the guitarists to fight over 
So this is a really old post, but I just came across it while Googling neck thru vs bolt on. I bought a Cort A5 last month and loved it so much that I just bought a Cort B4 Element. Similar basses, same manufacturer, identical pickups and preamp. The differences being 4 vs 5 string, neck thru vs bolt on, the woods used, and about 1.5 lbs.
They sound very different. The A5 sounds very smooth and warm. I thought people were crazy for saying the Bartolini MK1 pickups and preamp were harsh and lacking. When I first played the B4, I immediately understood where that came from. I was very surprised. I was expecting them to sound virtually identical. Never been one to believe that neck joints, top woods, or fretboard materials made a difference in tone, but now I think differently. I do wonder how much of an effect weight has.
For anyone debating a Cort A or a Cort B, I would personally suggest the A. Worth the extra cost. The B is still great, really well made, and only weighs 7.7 lbs.
How can the pickups be identical on a 4 vs 5 string? I get “same model” but sound will differ for sure.
How about strings? Tensions? Setup?
One of the first things I do when I get a new bass is to put on my favorite brand and gauge strings and set it up they way I like it. They’re both 34” scale strung through the body. Relief, string height, pickup height… They’re pretty consistent in that way. Different bridges, though.
I looked into it a little more, and even though they are the “same” reverse P MK1 pickup (and even the same dimensions), they are slightly different under the casing.
The 4 string has a shorter magnet on the bass side. Same size case, 20% less magnet?
Anyways, they’re far more similar than they are different on paper, but they sound quite different.
Woods and neck joins and so on can definitely make a difference.
But what you described sounds like a large difference - and that’s usually pickups and electronics.
I stick to one theory. Your ears like what your ears like.
I have my own personal views about this, but in the end. it’s all about your ears.
You do you.
I’ve posted elsewhere about that guy’s videos (the “air guitar” video guy) and various methodological errors he makes. I like his style and attitude but what he is doing should not be mistaken for a rigorous scientific comparison; it’s more truthy pop sciency than actual scientific method.
The example I usually give is that for his “do microphones matter?” video he decided to baseline a flat response using the Shure SM-58.
Now, the SM-58 is my favorite mic - but is is also far from a flat response and is very sensitive to cardiod positioning. He needed to pick a baseline, but he did not pick a neutral one. His choice of control was flawed; the rest of the video is now meaningless, and becomes not “Do mics matter?” but more of “How are these mics compared to the SM-58 in the exactl position I used it?”.
Anyone with ears can tell you there is absolutely a large difference between extremely sensitive, powered condenser mics and dynamic mics like the SM-58.
The same is true of his “does wood matter” video; @terb listed a few good reasons, but for me the kicker was that even despite the theme, you can still absolutely hear the differences even in his video. The sound evidence doesn’t support the conclusion people draw from it.
Does the construction of the guitar matter for sound? Yes, of course it does. Is it the majority of the tone? Not even close, and no one has ever argued this.
Tonewood is real, but pickups and strings and so on play a much larger role. It’s silly that this is controversial at all.
I used to be a big mythbusters fan when they were on the air, and one thing I learned from that is that people who post on YT are not above fudging the results to show a predetermined result, especially if its controversial as that makes clickers click. So I am a skeptic when it comes to such things. How do we know people didn’t fudge things in post?
Also for the science aspect, it’s not accepted in science until other people have replicated the experiment and results. One test is not conclusive.
To the guy’s credit, he does attempt to follow the scientific method. It’s just that his methodology is flawed.
And that’s why you replicate tests, to find stuff like flaws in the methodology. He gave it a good go I’ll give him that
FWIW, in my own very subjective opinion, I don’t care about neck-thru for the tone. I like them for the feel of the heel when playing up high (my fingers are short and pudgy enough as is without needing to reach around a block) and the smoothness of the joint vs a metal plate and screw heads rubbing against my shirt and catching threads. It also just looks cool.
