Minnesota Flats
Senior Member
- Joined
- Oct 3, 2015
- Messages
- 1,355
- Reaction score
- 1,248
When I bought my NS SF-I, I kind of felt I had "settled": I couldn't come up with the scratch for a new NS SF-II (it had just come out, so there were no used ones around) and was offered a really killer deal on a brand new SF-I, so I bought it. For a couple years, now, I've been wondering if I should've have saved and waited. I mean, I'm completely in love with my SF-I, so shouldn't an SF-II be even more of a good thing?
Well, today I finally got an opportunity to spend a couple hours A/B-ing my SF-I with an SF-II: same strings, same amp, only the basses were different. I'll be danged if I don't kind of prefer the SF-I! OK, granted I have mine all dialed in to my personal liking in terms of action, pup pole piece height etc. and the strings are nicely broken in (pretty new strings on the SF-II)...but still. I was expecting the SF-II to win it by a slam dunk.
Something that really surprised me is that even though the bridge pup on the SF-II is slightly closer to the bridge than the single pup on the SF-I, the SF-I seems to produce more treble frequencies than the SF-II (even when the bridge pup on the latter is soloed). Both basses have 500K pots, right?
Sure, having the neck pup gives you a broader tonal range overall, but I'm not sure that, for me, that's sufficient compensation for losing the simplicity of the single pup configuration.
To be sure, there's nothing wrong with the SF-II. Nothing at all. And all these observations are subjective. I was just expecting it to really blow me away by comparison. Maybe this is just one of those situations where you fantasize too long about something and then wind up being somewhat disappointed because your expectations have been become unrealistic from too much anticipation.
Well, today I finally got an opportunity to spend a couple hours A/B-ing my SF-I with an SF-II: same strings, same amp, only the basses were different. I'll be danged if I don't kind of prefer the SF-I! OK, granted I have mine all dialed in to my personal liking in terms of action, pup pole piece height etc. and the strings are nicely broken in (pretty new strings on the SF-II)...but still. I was expecting the SF-II to win it by a slam dunk.
Something that really surprised me is that even though the bridge pup on the SF-II is slightly closer to the bridge than the single pup on the SF-I, the SF-I seems to produce more treble frequencies than the SF-II (even when the bridge pup on the latter is soloed). Both basses have 500K pots, right?
Sure, having the neck pup gives you a broader tonal range overall, but I'm not sure that, for me, that's sufficient compensation for losing the simplicity of the single pup configuration.
To be sure, there's nothing wrong with the SF-II. Nothing at all. And all these observations are subjective. I was just expecting it to really blow me away by comparison. Maybe this is just one of those situations where you fantasize too long about something and then wind up being somewhat disappointed because your expectations have been become unrealistic from too much anticipation.