LeftyBassist.com

Just got this in yesterday (5-30-18).

D'Angelico Premier Mott Acoustic Bass

Solid spruce top, laminated rosewood sides & back. Mahogany neck, rosewood fingerboard. About $500. Made in China.

Extremely impressed. Super nice gloss finish, intricate headstock details, and a weird, tiny metal hood ornament thing at the very top of the headstock. Block inlays which are really dope on an acoustic. They fit nicely with some of the art deco-y details. Beautiful rosewood on the sides & back.

Fishman preamp, which sounds great so far. 3 band EQ with a phase switch, notch, and brilliance knobs. Volume of course. Sounds like a lot of acoustic preamps, but that's fine. Plenty of tonal options I suppose.

And I have to waste 30 seconds mentioning this, because someone allllways asks:
As with any ABG, no, it won't truly hold its own volume-wise in a room with other acoustic instruments jamming. Forget it. Need an upright for that. Oh, and no you can't cop an upright tone on this either. Need an upright for that too.

The frets are level, smooth and buzz free. The fretwork overall is as good as can be. No harsh ends or anything.

Playability is fast & comfortable. I don't know much about neck profiles and such but the overall feel of it is that of a 50's Precision (from my limited experience with one real one and one reissue). Chunky as hell but no less manageable than a thinner neck. Very comfy to me.

Was it playable out of the box? Sure, if you absolutely had to play a gig right then and there.
But on the other hand, nah. Not really.

Like most affordable imports, there isn't a lot of attention paid to final setup tweaks and such. The action was sky high, but I don't think the truss rod had barely been turned, so there was a considerable bow. But the neck itself is true, so some truss adjustment did the trick. It's bone straight now. Truss rod turned smoothly. Also, the bridge saddle was a little high, so I had a buddy of mine who is a repairman knock it down a little. Cost less than $20. Whatever.

The strings were D'Addario phosphor bronze (at least that's what the color coded ball ends led me to believe). They were super funky, but I usually change strings on a new instrument anyway so I don't care. I went out and grabbed a new set of the same strings and solved that.

The only other negative thing I can say is that there's no case. Like, not only did it not come with one (probably makes sense at this price point), but there doesn't seem to be one even made for it. I just ordered a Gator gig bag for acoustic basses instead.

So anyway, I didn't really plan to babble and make a review out of this. Here are a couple pix.

Looks really nice!

Wow that's not your average boring looking acoustic bass!
I would like to give these a try some day.
Congrats!

Now THAT is an acoustic I really like

Nice! I've always liked the art deco styling cues of this bass....

"A super classy art eco styling that belies it's price point."

You're free to borrow that description, Matt.

I like! That’s like super eloquent and stuff.

I pity that poor little Baby Taylor in the background, no doubt he's developed an inferiority complex.

It’s my one token guitar in a sea of musical instruments.

is there any neck dive to speak of?
I dig the rosewood back, looks like a good piece of wood!

Haven’t played it with a strap yet, but I’m gonna go ahead and expect some dive.

I have an acoustic with the strap button on the neck heel, and another with where the strap ties to the headstock. Neck heel is better. With the way my arm rests on the body, there's no neck dive.

BTW, if you decide you want a hard case, let me know and I can measure my Dean case. You can grab those for $100 and the Dean acoustics are quite large, so it should work.

Awesome! Thanks Tim

Great looking ABG! I have ABG gas that never really goes away. This nice unique bass has spiked my gas again. Great score and really nice review.

They also have a $1000 version of this as well. I’d never spend that much on an ABG but it may be worth checking out if you’re into them enough.

The more expensive one seems to come with a hard case.
Besides that, what's the difference between the two?
BTW if I had to get one I would also get the same one as you did!

The specs are on the site. I can’t remember all the differences. I just didn’t feel any of them were worth it to me.

I looked at two different listings and also didn't see significant difference.

We'll that's just poor marketing

One thing I read that I thought was odd is that the neck on mine has scarf joints, while the higher priced one doesn’t. I looked it up and from what I saw, people were saying (on guitar forums and such) is that scarf joints are actually stronger, but the absence of one is desirable because that looks better.
Maybe someone who knows better can chime in on that.