LeftyBassist.com

I JUST received this!
O.K. my thoughts...
It was boxed extremely well. a typical trapezoidal guitar/ bass box, inside a larger guitar shipping box. A LOT of styrofoam peanuts!
Opening it up, there's a styrofoam sleeve, and voila' a new bass!
It's really beautiful.. the color is called 'Lake Placid Blue' but it's really more like Fender's 'Ice Blue Metallic,' or Pontiac Engine blue metallic, which I love.
The action is medium high. I lowered it to my liking. The neck needed slight adjustment, about a quarter turn. I LOVE the truss rod access channel. VERY big plus here. The intonation, is perfect. I played it un-amplified, and it resonates quite well. The nut spacing is narrower than I'm used to, but it's not a problem. The big surprise for me, was the bridge. I have no idea why anyone would want to replace this. It's nicely machined, better, and with more mass than most 'bent-plate' style bridges.
I NEVER see this problem addressed, other than flatwound string breakage on older basses with only through body stringing- This new bridge fixes that- for us flatwound users- it's a DUAL LOAD, yes, you can string it through the body, OR through the holes in the back of the bridge. The saddles and screws are quite nice. Another unexpected surprise- the tuners have a Hipshot style TENSION set screw adjustment on the bottom shaft retainer!
Sure, there's a few negative things, like the uneven fret ends, and the way they are folded into the binding, and a few stray black file/ scratch marks on the binding. Now for my one BIG gripe. I plugged it in to familiarize myself with the preamp. This bass looks, feels, plays, and sounds just killer. I even find the slightly narrow for me nut spacing to be no issue at all. Now the one issue I don't like so much- Like my G&L tribute- the controls work counter-clockwise! All my other basses (20 others) have a much preferred to me- clockwise rotation.
If any of you have one of these, you already know what a great deal they are. If you don't, I'd say- buy one! I paid $784.00 and waited four months for this, and it was worth it.

So, for now... overall I'm pleased.
Sire is on top of what we need, these upgrades seem right on target. Especially the bridge.

Beautiful! Great review... and, a 5-string as well! Do they happen to make a 5-string bass? I'd pay for that!

Assume you meant *P* bass, and yup!

https://sire-usa.com/collections/custom ... 8795811978

Correct-a-mundo... meant to say P-bass! Thanks for the link!

And Damn! I'm SO close to paying for the red version, and waiting six months to get this 5-string P-Bass! Going to spend some sleepless nights thinking about this....

Oh man I know how that goes...

I waited four months. Now that it's here, after little setup work, it'll be in my gig rotation. I'm a repairman, as some of you know- I JUST missed the burgundy one Matt was selling. I ordered this almost right after that. Seems due to demand, and supply chain issues, these are now a five to six month wait from when you order it and pay in full. I want to order another one, ash, in the really cool metallic red with maple board and light colored pearl blocks. This one I bought is $784 from Sire, and the ash/maple neck 5 string is $893. STILL a good deal. I'm hoping that Sire tries to keep the costs down, as it seems everyone has raised their prices to an alarming degree. Nearly three thousand bucks for a Rick 4003? That's pretty stunning.

I've e-mailed Mickey at Sire to ask him if they have any preamps with controls that rotate clockwise-on/ clockwise boost. These are the same ones they install in a righty bass. I really like it- and have no intention to replace it... very few preamps do what this does, and dropping another 200 bucks for less features.. ah, nah.
The preamp in this V7, is wired like a P-bass- and like my G&L Tribute- counter-clockwise on. I'm thinking the answer will be no- as it's likely a large factory in Indonesia, and I can picture hundreds of these preamp assemblies being installed in every bass, regardless of orientation. All my other basses are wired the other way, and it's odd to adjust stuff on the fly. I think the pickups and preamp sound GREAT! Dead quiet, too.

P.S., for those interested, I weighed it last night. With a Neoprene strap and straploks installed, it weighs 10.5 pounds. It feels good, especially using a neoprene strap.

Congrats! And we.come to the Sire club.

My Sires have been my main gigging basses for over 5 years now. I started with a 1st gen V7, then progressed to a 1st gen V7 Vintage, which is my #1 gigging bass. I've done some mods over the years: made a bass ramp; added a Hipshot detuner; installed a Bass Mute; and swapped out the PUPs for DiMarzio DP123 hum cancelling Jazz PUPs (though truthfully, Sire's J PUPs are nearly quiet as a mouse anyway).

Regarding your comment about the counter-clockwise pots, the one curious thing about them is, even though they're righty pots, the taper is smooth and gradual, so they function as they should. I've never encountered righty pots on a lefty bass that operated correctly, so there's some kind of happy voodoo going on under the hood.

Enjoy!