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Essex SJB-62 (Flamed Jazz Bass) Reviews  2 / 5 based on 1 reviewsFrom www.rondomusic.com
ordered online
$130 bucks
why: To have a stylish cheap bass for small time use. I mainly play guitar so this bass was just to mess around with.
The flame job on the guitar is very good for the price. The style of the jazz bass is definitely represented well. What you see in pictures is what you get. Appearance wise this guitar does very well. It produces a good enough sound for those not doing shows or for those not heavily serious into bass. For the price you would get the sound and looks you want.
If you were blind folded and had to pick up this guitar compared to a real jazz base, you would definitely know the difference.
This guitar does not have a nice balance to it and may seem uncomfortable to those used to real jazz basses.
One other thing to note is that the guitar's neck is sticky. I can offer no explaination as to why. I knew someone who had one of these before me and he claimed the neck was always sticky. I thought that maybe he just got something on it.
I was wrong. The neck, no matter how much you try to clean it, will always feel sticky. Basically you can not slide your palm up or down the neck quickly without getting a squeak as it tries to grab onto your skin.
This is the area to really dislike this guitar.
After two or three weeks this guitar became a mess. It simply stopped working. The guitar was not put to heavy use or abused. It seems that the problem was caused from the input jack loosening just enough to allow it to wiggle. This is a common thing on many guitars but this guitar is so cheaply wired that it ended up being devastating.
When I opened the guitar I was amazed as how cheaply done all of the wiring was. Everything looked like it was on the brink of disconnecting. This company conserves solder as though it was pure gold. I was able to solder the broken wires back together and things were fine for a few days.
The volume control for the rhythm"pickup died. I played with it a great deal to get it working but it never would hold up for long. Finally I gave up and just bypassed it. I emailed www.rondomusic.com about my problem and the guy there told me he would send me a replacement part. I gave him my address and no part ever came.
This guitar looks great but it really is what is inside that counts in this case.
Do not buy this guitar unless you know how to solder.
Also, superglue the input hole to make sure it never loosens and be gentle with the guitar. Even for $130 you would expect better wiring.
I would think that for the trouble you would want to just buy a slightly more expensive guitar. You can only get these at rondomusic.com and considering that I have had many problems with them (from misplacing orders to making false promises) I can also say that you will not be able to get any real customer support with this brand.
Andrew Fillmore rated this unit on 2003-05-02.
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