Maple vs. Rosewood fretboards

[sharkboy]

A friend, and the best bass player I know (or even know of), traveled to Sadowski's factory to check out all of his basses to decide which style he wanted made. He went there wanting a fretless (I think it was fretless) rosewood or ebony fretboard and spent a whole day checking things out and was shocked to find out that he had a vast preference for maple. He said it had more and tighter bass and more consistent sound all the way up.

Until I finally got a Rick bass, all of my electric basses of either type necks sounded "******." They weren't really good instruments and I think some of it was the player.

[rick12dr]

And then there is the possible issue that local repairmen have discussed with me, about size of frets in a given type of board, and whether the frets[factory done or aftermarket] were hammered in, with no glue used, or glued in[a bit of, say, Titebond in slot prior to installation].One of these guys is adamant that ebony is all round the "best" board material,but specifically if it's on a Maple, Not a mahogany neck.Finally, the issue of not every piece of any type of wood used
for boards will have a consistent density/hardness to it, even if,say, generally,"all maple necks are the same".If you've found one you like,don't go too nuts trying to analyze, just enjoy it for whatever it is.I think the differences can be heard,if you have time to A/B different guitars.Unlike[and my opinion here...]audiophiles who claim they can hear the difference between 16 and 14 guage speaker wire..

[doctorwho]

I'd like to remind everyone that the Blackstar, Tuxedo, and Redneck basses have finished maple, not rosewood, fretboards, so comparison of those against other Rickenbacker basses of the same era (c. 1987-1990) might prove interesting.