ESP LTD B205SM FL Natural Satin

I won't lie, I went for this bass mostly because of the looks: I much prefer the "coffee table" look to a Fender-style bass. The appearance of each individual instrument will vary, but I don't have any complaints about mine; the spalting isn't quite as distinctive as the picture, but it looks nice. Only the front is spalted, and the main part of the body is made of several pieces of wood with distinctive seams on the side and back where they join, but I don't notice that when I'm playing it (or looking at it :-). The varnishing is well done and I didn't notice any blemishes.

The hardware seems to be decent quality for the price. The bridge feels solid and allows either through-body or straight stringing, and the knobs are smooth and quiet. The tuners aren't the best I've seen - they're maybe a bit flimsy, so I don't know how long they'll last - but at least for now they work fine and turn smoothly.

The fingerboard looks and feels nice. The fret lines are easily visible when playing (at least in good light - maybe not so much on a dark stage) and extend over the edge of the fingerboard so you can see them from above, but they look subtle from a distance, which is of course important so people do not think you are playing a fretted bass :-). As with most lined fretless basses, the dots are in the same place as a fretted bass, i.e. in the middle of each fret. The neck has a nice shape and feels comfortable to play. It's not as razor-thin as Ibanez necks, but it's not a huge Fender P-style neck either.

This is the first and only fretless bass I've played, so I can't say too much about the sound compared to other instruments. To my ear it has a nice tone, it responds well to slides and vibrato, it will "mwah" if you set it up to do that, and the onboard eq seems to work well. I don't have any complaints about the sound.

Now, the things I didn't like so much:

- It's very heavy. If you're used to Ibanez basses (like I was), that might take some adjustment, and I don't know if I'd want to stand up for several hours holding it.

- The pickup output is very quiet, especially for an active bass. Even after adjusting the pickup height, I have to add a significant amount of makeup gain on my compressor to bring it up to a reasonable level. I haven't noticed any noise or hum from the pickups from doing that though, so it's not a huge problem.

- Replacing the battery requires unscrewing the back plate. A tool-less battery compartment would be a little nicer and surely not too much to ask for at this price.

- Most importantly, I couldn't adjust the action low enough for my preference, and I ended up having to shim the neck a bit to raise it up a couple of mm towards the strings. I wonder if they use the same setup here as for the fretted version, and didn't raise the fingerboard to compensate for the lack of frets. This is of course a personal preference, and other people might find the factory setup is fine.

Despite those complaints, I'm happy with my purchase. It's a good bass, it does what I want it to do, and I enjoy playing it, which is what matters in the end. If I wasn't so fond of its looks, though, I might consider other basses in the same price range.

I bought this bass as a back up for a UK tour of RENT that i was on. Essentially it ended up becoming my main bass i liked it that much. First thing i noticed when i took it out of the box was how sturdy and well built it was. It felt quite weighty but the weight was in the right place and it balanced perfectly. I had to have it set up to my liking but once i did it played like a dream. It has a great tone and with the 3 band eq preamp and pick up selector you can dial in any tone you want in a matter of seconds from a standard tone that doesn't sound that fretles and sounds good with a pick, to a classic fretless sound with fingers and the Jaco tone is easy to get. The price is incredible and this bass definitely punches above its weight. I've played bass over twice its value that aren't as good. Definitely recommend. Oh yeah, it fell off in its stand on the first gig and escaped with a chip on the back of the neck and i was fearing much more damage. Very well made.

I've wanted a fretless bass for a while and this one fit my budget. The build is quite good and it's surprisingly light in my opinion. I did have to get it setup and one of the fret markers needed to be removed, filed down, and relayed. The eq is good but it's lacking a bit in the variety and power of tones I get from other similarly priced basses; it's lacking a bit of oomph.

Taking the advice of previous reviewer I got a pack of the D'Addario Chromes (flatwounds) and it made it sound much more like it should.

For the price it's very good and I'm happy with my purchase.

This bass is a solid piece of wood :) , with a sturdy bridge, knobs and tuners. Features are as stated on the website, so nothing new there. No hums or crackling pots. That is all fine.

Using DR flatwounds I have not been able to set the intonation such, that you can finger exactly on the fretmarkers: the saddles for the low strings cannot go back far enough. I had to set it up for fingering right behind the markers.

Thomann provided some extra service for this item.
This bass was bought to replace my old fretless, which had a warped neck, so as a first thing I checked the neck. It was warped in the same way as my old one, and Thomann immediately offered to send a different instrument.
It turned out that that one's neck is warped as well, though in a different way. After putting tension on the strings for a day, I managed to set it up for correct intonation in most positions on the neck, so I decided to keep it.
It still needs relatively high action however, to prevent the strings from being muffled or buzzing, at least 4 mm on the B-string side.