I am generally 99.9% in 100% agreement.
Caveats 0.01% is in case someone puts out a super cool new bass and I gotta have it. If I didn’t have the Bello bass, aid have bought a Paranormal with the gold pickguard in a heartbeat.
I enjoy buying used, enjoy the hunt. Like find oddities of yore and love me a deal.
Never bought a new Sax, ever, except for an experiment from China to see quality.
So a 1 month update. I’ve had this long enough for the honeymoon period to be over. My thoughts? Yeah, I really like it. It does what it says on the tin. It’s fit and finish is excellent and plays nicely.
My only idle thought is this is $800 and the US made ones start at $1400. What are people getting extra for another $600?
Don’t get me wrong If you have one / want to buy one, it’s your money. I just wonder what upgrades are there?
It is nicer than previous Classic Vibe Squier’s I’ve owned, but not by much.
Not much IMO.
Since I’ve only ever kept 1 fender stock pickup in a bass, I wouldn’t be buying higher price for better pickups. And if the fit and finish are good and it stays in tune and you like the looks of it then what’s left? Bragging rights I guess? Resale value perhaps?
My idle thought is, that is one enormous headstock! 
Yeah I ordered the XXL headstock. It’s a special order but worth it IMHO. You never know when you’ll fancy pizza.
Just curious, does that huge headstock create severe neck dive? It seems like it would…
@HowlinDawg is joking, as am I. The angle of the photo makes the headstock look big. The P Bass headstock has remained pretty much the same size for 75 years.
However when CBS bought Fender in 1965 they increased the size of the Strat headstock? Why? so that the Fender logo would appear bigger on TV. Details here:
My opinion on buying Fender is: Yes, if you find the right one.
I love my Fender Precision. Killer tone, 8.2 lbs, perfectly balanced, Oly white, Rosewood fingerboard, Tort, and a killer ‘63 P Bass neck profile.
This one is a lifer for me.
I am now up to 6 Fender basses.
1 US
1 MIM
3 MIJ
1 Squier Indonesian
I have to say I like them all, and have modified or will modify all but 1 of them in some way.
So, although I like them, I like them better with changes.
Another question then is….
Are there basses you find that are just darn perfect as they come from the factory?
If so what?
Is that question aimed at Fender owners only? I’m asking because this is a Fender thread and one can only assume.
Not my MIM P Bass. There was some fret sprout. So I used my fret file to smooth off the sharp fret ends and spend a bit of time tidying them up.
The action was so high Gary Coleman could have easily walked under the strings. So a quick setup but nothing too hard.
I have had no urge to modify any of my Yamahas at all. Pickups are fantastic, the other hardware is great, the basses themselves are well made and the fit and finish is outstanding.
Mine haven’t had fret sprout but you can definitely feel the frets along the edge. There’s nothing to file or round off, I think it’s just how Yamaha cuts frets - you notice them. I think Josh even mentioned it in his TRBX304 review.
If I had kept my Warwick Rockbasses, I would have replaced the EQ’s with 3-band. I dislike 2-band EQs a lot. And put in active/passive switches while I was in there.
Sure, let’s keep it Fender for here, but maybe I will start another thread on the general topic.
@Barney
I am thinking more along the lines of upgrade needs/wants vs. quality control issues.
The only Fender I have not modded was the Custom Shop one, because it was exactly what I wanted. Every other Fender I have has or will have the pickups changed out on at the very least.
I have 5 Fender bases.
2 - MIM (Player Jag and Jazz (up for sale))
2 - MIC (Squier Jag H and Paranormal)
1 - MII (Squier CV 70s P Bass)
I see what you mean; the pickup thing is such a personal and relatively cheap mod. At some point I will be tempted to drop in another set of pickups for fun.
The standard pickups in my P Bass currently sound great to my ears; to you it might sound like the teacher from Charlie Brown. But my hearing is messed up from the military
But I think old Leo got it right all those years ago. There’s nothing fundamental I’d change about this thing.
I don’t mind the P pickup in my MIM Vintera at all, it6s just getting the Les Claypool
P’up to match the color scheme (and give it a whirl.
For $800 I would have thought that they should have better quality control 
Both of my Yamahas played perfect right out of the box.
My 304 neck took over a week to settle in to be able to set it up and was nowhere near setup via sweetwater
I think this is a question of perspective. The fretwork was generally excellent as was the rest of the fit and finish. However I have a little bit of OCD. Which is a very useful thing to have as a finish carpenter.
There was maybe a light 1/64th of fret sprout on some of the higher frets. Most normal people would think it’s great and wouldn’t notice it. But I want to slide my hand up and feel nothing, like it’s sliding on glass.
Secondly it’s a numbers game. The Mexican Fender plant produces a lot of guitars. Maybe some of those that are made aren’t quite as good as others.
Yamaha also make a large amount of guitars and some of those will also be not great. I’m glad you got a good one but somebody somewhere will get a lemon. If you’re knocking out a Bass for less than $300 some of them are going to be a bit rubbish.
I bought a new Yamaha acoustic years ago and it went straight back to the store. The frets were like barbed wire and for what i was paying I wasn’t going to fix it.
As far as setup. It was fine out of the box, but I like to run my action pretty low (less than 2mm on the E at the 17th) so there’s no way you’d ever buy any guitar from a manufacturer with that setup. They have to allow for the fact that the neck will move in transit so they set it higher at the factory.
Lastly $800 isn’t that much money for a Bass anymore. It’s Fender’s entry level guitar. But with a little bit of elbow grease and some patience it’s now lovely.
Like I said, I’m glad the Yamaha is working out for you.
I wonder why it took so long to settle in.
According to the luthier in the music shop I deal with the Yamaha Basses he receives are shipped with the truss rods completely loose and very little string tension.
Maybe that’s the reason although a week seems like a long time.
