Fender American Jazz V

First of all the $400-$500 dollar price tag is a misprint. These basses run around $1000 or so new, the Mexican version is the cheaper one. I found mine for $600 used. I haven't had the pleasure of trying out one of the Mexican models, but the American bass is exactly what I expected from Fender. I'd heard some knocks on the construction of this series but that's not the case here. It's built like a tank, although it can be a little heavy for some. Mine is a 1997, alder body, bolt-on maple neck, pao ferro (similar to rosewood) fingerboard, string through body, with classic wound single coil jazz pickups. The action is nice and low, with minimal fret buzz, and as I said in the pro-section, I love the string spacing. As with all 5 strings in this price range, the b can get sloppy, but if you use taper core strings (ie: Ken Smith, DR) that is not a problem. The intonation for the b was kind of a bugger to get right and it's still not perfect above the 10th fret or so, but hey....I rarely play the b up that high anyway. It could be remedied with a truss rod tweak but I can't be bothered with all that right now! The pickups are passive, and each has it's own volume control but tend to give you that 60 cycle hum we all know about(with "dirty power") . Minor adjustments between the 2 will cancel that out. A single tone knob give an amazing variety of sound; it's not hard to get what you're looking for. The bass has a signature tone that in my opinion you cannot get from an imitation. Fender has patents on their necks, their pickups, etc....that's why we buy Fender gear. I play in church, but this bass would excel in country, rock, jazz...you name it. It's been the standard for almost 50 years for a reason.