Back when I first came around and everyone was all up in the air about the Squier '51, I commented about how much it was styled after the original P Bass. This is the bass I had seen. Several month's back, Bass Player did a comparison, and this was one of the basses used. Although they did rate the quality as very high overall, I do remember them saying something about the bridge. They also mentioned something about the pickup. As I recall, I believe they said it was a guitar pickup (like the original).
I find it interesting that not one person in all of the over 35 reviews posted on MF had anything bad to say about this bass. You take 35 members of the Bassplace or Bassplayers Yahoo groups and someone will have something to say about any given bass out there.
Don't get me wrong here, I'm not dissing this bass at all. I don't have enough experience with it to do that. I'm merely doing a reality check. The most prolific bass in the world is the Fender P Bass. Just about everyone and there brother makes a P Bass styled bass, with the possible exception of the very high end boutique builders. Like it or not, the P Bass sound is the predominant sound of rock-n-roll, and electric blues. That said, the most remembered tone out there is not that of the original '51, but rather the sound of James Jamerson and others who picked up the instrument in the latter half of the 1950's and beyond, after Leo had revamped the design, incorporating the now quite familiar split coil design, which BTW came about as a "poor man's" humbucker. Jamerson himself didn't switch from an upright to a Precision until 1962. A couple of the other famous bassists of the time, from a rock prespective, Brian Wilson (Beach Boys) and Nokie Edwards (Ventures), also played the modernized version of the Precision.
In conclusion, I think this bass would make a nice addition to any bassist's arsenal. Note that I said addition. Personally, I feel if you could only afford one bass, you certainly can't go wrong with one of the many bass guitars out there using the P-J pickup combination, which gives you the best of the two most well known bass guitars ever, the Precision and the Jazz.
BTW, note that the Precision Bass is the only Leo-designed bass that ever saw a major redesign by the master. Leo never made any made any major changes to the Jazz Bass, the Musicman Stingray, or the G&L L-2000. The pickup change of the early Precision stands out. Hmmm.
EDIT: I forgot to add Carol Kaye as one of the famous users to adopt Leo's re-designed Precision Bass. Her sound is one of the most famous, unsung sounds from early rock and beyond.
