L-2500? I played around with a US made L-2000. That was the nicest bass I’ve ever played (not that my experience is vast, but I have played the Fender’s and Rick’s).
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I don’t know if it’s already been mentioned, but the new “Blue Dream” burst by Music Man (on their custom design instruments) is absolutely stunning 
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I didn’t know what ‘burst’ was, but now I do. Turns out I’m not a fan of these finishes. I like this one, though:
But I prefer the headstock in the same color as the body. It should be silver metallic as well.
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Yup. An L2500 Tribute with an ash body. The grain doesn’t show up quite as well in the photo as it did in person. I sold the bass several years ago when I decided I no longer needed a 5 string. I bought an M2000 to replace it that I like much better.
That may also have been around the time I bought the Kiloton which you now own.
If you’ve gotten your hands on both, how does the tribute 2000 / 2500 feel versus the US made? That US one was the first bass I’ve picked up and thought it was worth $2K just based on the feel of it. I know the electronics on them are the same, some differences in the body, bridge, and tuners but does the fretboard feel as silky on the tribute?
Both my L2500 and M2000 were/are Tributes. But I have a friend who owned an Option Order US Built L2000. There’s a noticeable difference in some of the finishing touches as one would expect from a bass that’s essentially hand built to order by a small team of craftsmen.
“Feel” would be one of those areas. But IME that’s pretty much true overall with most imports vs their US built counterparts. Building one off models by hand allows for more attention to detail than mass producing 100s of them on a production line. No matter how good that production line is it will always have it’s limitations.
As far as G&L products are concerned there is virtually no difference in how a Tribute w/MFD pickups sounds vs it’s US built counterpart and little enough difference in “feel” to make that alone worth it’s much higher price. What you’re getting for your money is more options as to finish and a few other things like neck specs.
For instance; Jon wanted a 1 1/2" nut width on his L2000 vs a more traditional 1.68" like my M2000 or the 1.75" nut width on a Tribute L2000. US builds offer more than one neck profile option as well. Tributes offer 2 or 3 different finish choices. US builds offer dozens of finish options to personalize the bass.
There are a few others like lighter weight Empress Wood (Paulownia) Bodies, Spalted Maple Tops, Burl Tops, etc. Stuff only their custom shop will tackle. But the hardware, bridge, electronics is pretty much equivalent stuff whether made in CA or by Cortek. Any differences can be easily modified by buying the US parts to do it.
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Now that’s one bad burst.
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IMO, a good burst is like a rainbow…you can see the different colors from a distance but when you examine the transition areas, it is hard to spot the difference. I dislike “bursts” that have a two-tone look with a small line of fuzzies in between
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That one… I kind of like actually, nice woodgrain anyway. Still not for me but not nearly Epiphone-level bad.
still a not subtle black-red-yellow thing
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One burst I quite like (very relatively) is my G&L Doheny. Very very nice wood grain (ash) and a quite progressive 3-tone burst.
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Yeah that looks fine, nice grain, maybe a bit heavy on the red but not bad at all
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they call it “cloudburst” but I’m more into “lolburst” with this one
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that’s rather oppressive
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Glaucomaburst
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Also, though I’m not quite sure why, the binding just looks wrong against the black body. I’d have expected the contrast to work but it simply doesn’t for work me!
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