After drooling over one for ages, and for a while being interested in the cheap Split-P version, I decided to buy a new Guild Starfire. I had the DeArmond reissue once, but I sold it a long time ago.
I wanted the two pickup version, so I looked at the mahogany in Cherry or the Flamed Maple natural. It's the neck which makes the most change, cos both have a big maple middle block and a rosewood fingerboard and with laminated tops it hardly doesn't matter what kinda bodywood it is. So I think the basses won't sound that different.
The mahogany wasn't in stock, so I went for the maple. First it is a beautiful bass with flamed maple all around (but not too PRS fancy), and a thin walnut strip at the back of the neck. The controls are beautiful and there are some little metal dots on the body as reference for the controls. The bridge is strange with two screws, faom underneath it but it works. It comes with a case and I ordered an extra gig bag.
It's short scale and the neck is narrow, c/u shape and deep as I like it. The bridge is quite far into the body, the strap button is at the 17th fret so all is a bit 'to the left' like on a Tbird or SG Bass. And I'm used to it. I'm quite tall so I like big basses.
Don't expect it to be light, cos of course the body is quite deep in the middle and that's were the big center block is. It's Fender weight.
The sound is everything I wished for. I think it's the nicest sounding bass I have ever tried, along with my '76 Tbird. It came with round wounds and I will keep it that way.
The neck BiSonic sounds deep, warm, wide, and full. Very mouth watering sweet. Never dull or muddy. I think it's because of the wooden saddles, the edge is taken off a bit, so it's mellow, but not flatwound mellow. More like a mellowed down roundwound, without getting dull. The Bridge BiSonic can do a good enough J-neck or P imitation, playing with the tone a bit. So it's very versatile. I always liked the look of the BiSonics.
Together you get the slighly compresses sound and you can play with the volumes and mastervolume to het some nuances. Tone down gives it a more flatwound-with-sustain sound.
A bass which came close were the Chinese/Korean (Starfire is Korean) 32" Warwick Star Bass. Those big singlecoils are also very, very, very well sounding. Because of the heavy bridge and very stiff neck, the Warwick is a bit more aggressive sounding.
