IYV 5 String IBW-550 Bass Solid-Body Electric Guitar, Natural

Nice bass that plays above its price point. Neck through design with their 18v active pickups give this bass a sound and sustain all its own. No sharp frets, no dead spots, tweak to one saddle and she was ready to thump. The 18v electronics are good quality and the pups sound great stock. The satin finish that looks amazing on the walnut and I could not find one finish flaw on this bass. Battery compartment was the low point, breaking on me on first open, but that is a small, cheap fix. This was a great purchase, grab one while you can.

I could not believe my eyes when I unbox the bass. It looked so amazing, look so expensive, it felt so smooth and the finish was so professional design. Active and passive activation, pickup sounds great and I have no plans to replace them, the bridge is solid, the tuner works very well because it stays in tune, the neck is thin which makes the bass very playable and to me it's not heavy at all. I order new strings(SIT) power steel for it, but the strings came with it are not bad it's just my favorite are SIT's. The bass looks, feels, plays and sound like basses that I've owned and played that cost 4 to 5 times the cost of the IYV 550. Guys and Gals please get one before the word gets out, because for just a little over $200 that price now is unreal for a bass with all the different sounds that it gives and to mention a neck thru bass, it's no way you'll find one for that price. I've played bass for over 40 years, and it would have been nice to have had this beautiful thing during the Disco, and Funk during the 80's. One more thing it required no setup, just tuned it right out of the box and went right to thumping.

First off, I’m not currently really a bass player. This is my first bass. But, I’ve got a couple of Bass VI style guitars that I use for sub-octave guitar. I wanted an actual bass with bass string spacing, so this seemed like the best “first bass” for a guitarist. The bass now plays really well, looks good and sounds pretty good!! After a setup, it plays as well as my $800-$1200 instruments! Absolutely worth the under $250 I paid!! Now, all the issues: Truss rod came completely slacked and the saddles were all the way down. The bass was completely unplayable out of the box, basically everything was fretting out like half the fretboard above what I played. I raised the action all the way and still had some problems. So, put some relief in the neck (it was dead straight with the truss rod loose, though!) and brought the action back down to a reasonable height. Now it plays fantastic!! The intonation was surprisingly not bad. I haven’t set it fully yet, because I’m planning on putting on the top five strings of a 6-string set as a 5-string tenor bass (mimicking the bottom five strings of a Bass VI). Haven’t gotten to that yet, but I don’t anticipate any issues. If there are, I’ll update this review. I play a whole step down and I really don’t want that low string. D1 is plenty low enough for me. It was supposed to come with the two 9V batteries for the preamp. It did not. I have some coming tomorrow. I wasn’t about to pay $10 each locally. So, no idea how good the preamp is. But, I expect it to be reasonable. Again, if it’s not, I’ll update this review. The pots aren’t the smoothest, but they’re fine for this price. If I get too annoyed, I can replace them. Not worried. The pickups (in passive mode) are decent. I can get it to sound like a good death metal clanking bass tone, so it does what I want. The actual hardware isn’t bad … it’s not great, but it’s all completely reasonable and will hold up. Lastly, the body’s wings are supposed to be Walnut. And, well, that’s the lightest walnut I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s far from the dark brown of walnut I was expecting. There’s other reviews where they’ve sent them back for this (some times multiple times). And, while it annoys me, it’s not a dealbreaker for me. That said, the wood figuring isn’t awful, so no point in sending it back, especially at this price. Half a star off for aesthetics not really matching what was shown. Half a star off for missing batteries, no setup and so-so electronics. Overall, I’m incredibly pleased sky this bass!! I will absolutely be looking at IYV for more instruments in the future!!

A-plus five-star rating for this bass. It's a work of art, sounds amazing, plays fantastic. Added batteries, tuned it up, and it was ready for the jam. Have not found a flaw in the workmanship. Amazingly affordable. The active electronics add a lot of punch. I understand from reviews that some have had quality inconsistencies with IYV, so I may have lucked out. I received three of the same guitar on another order and one was clearly superior in tone, so there's that. Some controversy about the wood color not matching the photos. Mine has the light wood for the back and walnut or faux walnut top with very nice grain. Love it, everyone is raving about it and can't believe how inexpensive it was.

When I bought this bass I was pretty skeptical but honestly I am pretty impressed. I have played stringed instruments for 30 years and owned many basses, guitars, mandolins, double bass, cellos, violins, ukuleles... needless to say I know my way around stringed instruments. I bought this bass because I wanted to record some tracks in my home studio during quarantine, so I figured I would get something disposable. Wow was I wrong! It sounds great and plays great. This bass is anything but disposable. It is extremely playable and comfortable. Don’t get me wrong there are some trade offs at this price point, for example, the tuners are not amazing and there are small cosmetic flaws but the tuners get the job done and are solid and as for the cosmetic they are extremely minor and barely noticeable. The only thing I don’t like is the gloss finish on the neck. I much prefer a more matte finish on the neck but it’s nothing a bit of 0000 steel wool can’t solve. Also, the fret ends are just a little sharp but this too can be easily fixed and nothing a $1200 guitar wouldn’t suffer from. I now fully intend on keeping this instrument in my studio. Again, I can’t stress enough how much I am impressed about the quality at this price. I am blown away.

Awesome bass. Out of the box and into the rig it holds up to any high end bass I own. Highly recommend.