I ordered and received my bass back in September, and love it just as much now as did when I received it.
When the bass arrived (stood up on a pallet), it was very well packed and very secure. After getting past all the packaging I inspected the bass and it was perfect. The bridge is shipped loose in the box, and (very helpfully) had "E" and "G" on the respective sides. On the body of the bass there was two small marks to show where the bridge sits. Bridge in place, it was time to tune up and have some fun. Tuning up was nice and simple and compared to a previous bass, tuning wasn't that scary. There was no creaking and popping, just a very smooth tune up.
As mentioned, the screw to hold the endpin isn't the greatest, but mine seems to have settled in a small groove made in the endpin and works fine now.
The sound quality of the instrument straight out of the box is good, the first thing I did however, was change the strings. The stock strings are high tension and not too great. With the intention of playing jazz and rockabilly styles, I've opted for low tension Rotosound strings (half steel, half nylon) and with these strings on the bass just sings.
More recently I've started using the bow more and more often and whilst the bow is pretty good, I'm not too keen with a German style frog (perhaps having an option to pick could help?), so I've just ordered myself a French style (pernambuco) bow.
Before ordering my bass I looked online for advise and lots of people suggest avoiding new basses, especially if they're under £1000. With this it doesn't matter, for the money it's a great bass and I love mine.
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