Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

i tried several of these out at martin music yesterday,along with fender,ibanez,and lakland 5-ers. hell i even picked up a 6 string,and promptly got all ten of my fingers tied up in knots ( ) the sb5 felt great,and sounded really good acoustically. this is about as much a departure for me as anything (i've resisted 5-ers for quite a few years) but i am thinking of getting one-- that low b just blows my skirt up-----anyone have any experience with one of these? oh,it was new and they had a really good price on it as well,part of my motivation!

SB5? Do you mean SR5?

well actually it might be a "sub 5" ? (damn my selective memory!) apparently discontinued,i can't find it on the music man website. i suspect the body may be basswood,like a bongo,it is very light. there were 2 available for $582,and it seemed like a nice playing 5 string for the $$$. esthetically speaking,it was kinda weird,but it sounded really good. the neck was painted black satin with a rosewood fb,had a funky machine shop metal pg,and the aforementioned crinkly paint job. the simplicity of it appealed to me even with the active electronics. (which don't)

Ah, the SUB models! Yeah, it's too bad they discontinued them - they were an attempt to make a bass here that could price compete with some of the imports. I think they got too expensive to continue the line.

IIRC the SUB5 was more like a Sterling 5 than a Stingray 5 - not a bad thing at all. I've been wanting a Sterling 5, the tidier body size is nice.

Great basses, the price sounds good!

ah thanks ken! yes it had a smaller body which i liked. i thought for nearly a third (or in some cases a fourth) of the prices of the other 5-ers i tried out,it was a good sounding instrument,plus it had a nice spacing for fingerstyle playing,not as wide as the laklands or fenders, wider than the ibanez. i really loved the bongo 4 and 5 stringers i played,which was also an eye-opener for me.

I'm a major EBMM fan - you can see from my sig that the majority of my basses are by them. They just plain work for me!

My Bongo 5H gets most of the love at the moment:



But the SR5 and Sterling get trotted out, too. I go in cycles.

"eyes poppin out"......wow great lookin bass,ken...love the orange/tortoise...really like the body shape on the bongo,too.

I looove Stringrays and I have a thing for Bongos as well. Besides the 4003, my favorite bass to play. I probably need to buy one some day--I kind've miss my old Stingray.

The new Bongos are hot.

I loves me some Bongo! The Bongo 5 is my #1 bass. Stingray 5 is #2. (see my avatar.)

Love MM basses too, but the 4 string kind, and prefer pre EB..

Musicman makes some of the best five strings on the planet, I particularly like the Bongo (w/out the pg though).

Man, I love the neck on that BFR!

It's rosewood!

Mark, if I ever decide to get a Bongo 5er (likely), I will have to PM you and hit you up for details about how to shop for them... you too Steve... They seem like the next evolution of a Stingray, bringing them into the uppermost eschelon of bassdom in my book. They sound as good as a Ric, with their own unique thing(s), which pretty much means I'm sold.

I really like The MM StingRay5. I can't get used the shape of the Bongos, though I must say they sound really nice. I used these two SR5s before I was able to get a Rick 5 string.