I forgot to mention that I got a chance to try an Epi Pro V a couple of weeks ago. It sounded like a T-Bird should, active pickups and all; the sound was still very aggressive and not at all 'icepicky earthquake' like most cheap active basses. What I couldn't get past was the width of the neck. It reminded me of the Korean Conklin 7 strings, no kidding. It was way too wide and the neck profile too shallow. I could live with the shallow profile, but that huge width made it nearly unplayable. The four string version doesn't look like it suffers from the same affliction.