| Reviewer | will |
| Manufacturer | Pensa-Suhr |
| Model | Jazz style bass ca. 1991 |
| Price | $1499.00 |
| Neck Type | 1 piece maple |
| Fingerboard | rosewood w. jumbo frets |
| Body Type | j-bass style alder |
| Finish | navy-blue/purple, subtly speckled, no pickguard |
| Controls | two volume, two preamp tone knobs; active/passive switch |
| Pickup(s) | 2 passive lindy fralin jazz bass pickups |
| hardware | gotoh tuners, hipshot extender, black badass-2 bridge |
Badass bridge, gotoh tuners and a hipshot extender: some silly gearhead's frankenbass? no. this was the best bass i've ever played; i'm now seriously considering hocking my fender. this bass had no dead spots, perfect playability & was totally solid. in passive mode, with just the two volume controls engaged, the sound --punch, tone, balance, growl-- blew away my 62 reissue --it even sounded more like a real 62 jazz bass. i switched on the preamp and was blown right away; the pickups were impressive, but the overall bass was incredible. i also liked tha fact that the bass didn't look at all "boutique-y" & was customized for someone with plain tastes; it wasnt as pretty as my fender, but it was even less pretentious. if i can get over my snobbery about non-canonical --i.e. not fender, gibson, etc.-- frankenbasses, i am going to sell my two basses, cut the losses and get the pensa.
UPDATE :
I checked this bass out again, this time against my jazz bass. One of the salesmen had told me the previous time that the '62 vintage jazz was constructed primarily of cheap japanese parts & hardware --he was confusing the american-made vintage series, with the japanese-made reissue series. The pensa was still better sounding & playing than the fender, but the difference was not as pronounced as i was expecting. The pensa didn't play that much better than the fender. it did sound better, but the fender had dead strings and desperately needed a set-up after the pounding i've given it at gigs and rehearsals. I compared the two bases through a considerably lower quality amplifier than when i tried the pensa alone, and its weaknesses were exposed. I must retract some of my extreme ravings about the pensa. It is definitely an excellent bass, but i think that you can find the same quality at a lower price.
(editor's note: John Suhr has contacted me and asked that I add that he left Pensa-Suhr in 1991, and is no longer associated with that brand, other
than the electronics on some models.)
| Construction | 100% | 
|
| Playability | 90% |
|
| (was 100) | ||
| Appearance | 60% |
|
| (was 85) | ||
| Sound | 90% |
|
| (was 100) | ||
| Value | 30% |
|
| (was 80) | ||
| Overall | 74% |
|
| (was 100) | ||