NBD

MattBanshee

Following a lucky spot on a very badly described eBay listing (no brand/model name, just "electric bass guitar with case"), I managed to score this, local to me, with hard case, leather strap and cable, for the pocket money sum of £180;




A German-made, 2001 model Warwick Streamer Standard, complete with dings, replacement strap pins (including one sheared screw), strings put on backwards on D and G, and a neck relief that would get Robin Hood excited - luckily, slow and gentle truss rod tweaks have significantly improved it, and will leave to settle overnight and adjust some more tomorrow.

Plugged it into a headphone amp and it sounds amaaaazing, just like a proper Warwick should, even though it's a passive model (for now...).

guitargeek62

Bloody hell, proper bargain there - well done!!!

ICBM

MattBanshee said:

A German-made, 2001 model Warwick Streamer Standard, complete with dings, replacement strap pins (including one sheared screw), strings put on backwards on D and G, and a neck relief that would get Robin Hood excited - luckily, slow and gentle truss rod tweaks have significantly improved it, and will leave to settle overnight and adjust some more tomorrow.

Plugged it into a headphone amp and it sounds amaaaazing, just like a proper Warwick should, even though it's a passive model (for now...).

Great score. And from my experience with Warwick electronics, best left passive as well!

mart

Unfortunately the pickups on these are supposed to be pretty poor, and an unusual shape so it’s hard to change them without routing. 

I guess a good beefy preamp is the way to go.

ICBM

mart said:

I guess a good beefy outboard preamp is the way to go.

FTFY

I've never seen the point in lumbering a bass with an onboard hiss generator...

MattBanshee

I noticed that the pickups straight into an amp were very quiet, but when put through my Fender Downtown Express with some extra gain and compression, it really came to life.

Epsilon

What a steal! Congrats on a bargainous bass.

Bridgehouse

ICBM said:

mart said:

I guess a good beefy outboard preamp is the way to go.

FTFY

I've never seen the point in lumbering a bass with an onboard hiss generator...

Unless you have under saddle piezos because the board extends right to the bridge.... *cough*

MattBanshee

Tried it at practice last night - rehearsal room's thoroughly knackered Ashdown 1x12 bass combo didn't like the low B at all so I put the Downtown Express straight into the PA and it was much better. Gentle truss rod tweaks (half a turn a day for 3 days) has sorted the neck relief out, and it feels like the string spacing is narrower at the body than on my (4 string) P Bass, which feels really comfortable when playing fingerstyle.

Funkfingers

On the Streamer Standard bridge, the string spacing is set by the notches in the saddles. On models with the separate bridge and tailpiece, there is scope for side to side adjustment.

Even then, the maximum spacing is narrower than a typical Fender or Musicman. e.g. When choosing a Duncan NYC Soapbar pickup for a Streamer Pro M, it was necessary to order a neck position version to get the rod magnet polepieces into any sort of alignment with the strings.

merlin

Damn good catch that. Dibs. 

Snap

that is good gassing, nice