My first impression of the Phantom reissue.
It looks cool! Very cool! Of course it's not a perfect reissue, but it costs roughly the same as a Squier Mustang Bass, so I won't complain.
It's short scale, approximately as long as a P because of the body behind the bridge. Like with an EB2 or 3 it feels everything is a bit to the left, while playing.
Well made, a sturdy pick guard and not a flimsy one as on some cheap basses.
Controls and pots are cheap. But it looks good.
Bridge has two saddles. Only think I don't like the gap in the pickguard for the bridge is bigger than on the prototypes I saw at Namm and Messe.
The pickup looks good! I hate basses like the Mosrite clones with J's.
Neck is really thin (36mm) but feels very nice. String spacing stays narrow till the end. Big jumbo frets.
Cool Vox logo on headstock, unfortunately no logo on pickguard.
Nice woods are used for neck and board.
Modern tuners don't look that bad on it.
It balances very bad, but that is as expected. But it looks good!
So purely based on facts it isn't that good, but it's just a fun bass to play! Very fast because fo the small spacing and narrow neck and it just looks so good!! Did I mention it looks good?
With the cheap factory strings the sound is quite agressive. More maple board sounding, than rosewood. It has a nice warm bottom end and more than enough gnarly highs, even if you use the neck pickup only. Bridge only is too thin, but together it has a more compressed sound.