Hi 57basstra, what are you saying, that bass can't talk? Are we talking about the same specimen here? that bass can talk, but in Japanese, that's why most of us can't understand it! lol I am joking these SBs rock to my taste, and I reckon, they were trying to copy Alembics it looks like.
I forgot to mention that one of the reason that convinced me to upgrade the pickups + electronics is because the SB 900 1982 models had the MB2 pickups, which were a downgrade and you can hear the difference if you A/B with the MB1s, all SB 1000s had MB1s, and in fact all pre 1980 models had MB1s, even SB 600/700 and so on, but after that it looks like they started to cut the cost for some reason... Same goes for the tunings, the newer one look and feel cheaper than the older ones, which had a sort of locking system, the newer where sealed. My SB 700 1980 has got the MB1 + better tunings then my SB 900 1982, (which was a more expensive model at the time), It doesn't make sense to me... But at least, I am aware of this little secret. I got all mine second hands thru eBay in fact!
So, here is an advice for people looking for an old SB, if it is not a SB 1000, try to get an 80s made the latest, if you can. Well, I am not saying that the post 1980 are not good, but I am just saying that the pre 80s are better, you can recognize it by the head stock, the older one look like bat ears as opposed to an open book look, and first number of the serial number indicates the year i.e: should be 8, 9 or 0 (1978/1979/1980)
