Cost cutting or market positioning?- Or do some folks just like it?

[vindibona1]

With a few minutes to kill, passing the local GC I stopped in to explore a bit. They had an MIA Elite Jazz bass there and I wanted to become more familiar with it. It felt nice, as it should, and surprisingly not much unlike my 2010 MIM 5-string jazz bass...

Up a few basses away were two new MIM's. One had to be older stock because it had a rosewood FB and the other next to it was a MIM with a PF FB. I played both and was dismayed at how uncomfortable they were to play. As I ran my hand along the fingerboard just playing normally I could feel the edge of the fingerboard irritating where my hand contacted the edge. Unlike my 2010 MIM or Squier VM70 it had no fingerboard edge relief whatsoever, but looked as if the edges were "sculpted" with a hard square edge. They don't have a hard edge on their more expensive models and didn't have a hard edge on the same models from years past. I do understand the move to PF from rosewood (cites), so that isn't the issue. It's the sharp edge that I'm seeing on all latter day MIM's (even the last of the rosewood MIM's).

So I have to ask... Why the change? I can't see any objection to relieving the hard FB edge. Do some folks actually like the feel? Or is this something done intentionally so that people move to more expensive models? Or is is just me?

Below is a pic of the new PF fingerboard. The edge feels sharper than it looks like in the pic.

 

[UNICORN BASS]

I will go with cost cutting. That is a horrid neck compared to a CV Squier.

 

[MattZilla]

Nah, that photo makes that edge look plenty sharp enough to add one solid bulletpoint to the answer to "why spend as much as I could on a used car on a MIA instead of getting an import bass?".

 

[vindibona1]

I will go with cost cutting. That is a horrid neck compared to a CV Squier.

I agree with your comparison. My 2010 Squier VM JB is super comfortable, especially because it preceded the gloss necks of 2013. But even the new Squier VM's feel better. I wasn't impressed with the sound at all either. But I don't necessarily think it's purely cost unless I'm missing something. Since the FB's have a radius they have to be milled or planed as such somehow. A CNC machine seems logical. It costs no more to make a refined FB on a CNC machine than one with squared off edges.

IMO I think what's happened is that they realized that there wasn't a heck of a lot of difference between their MIM standard and MIA standards which cut into sale of their more expensive units so have dumbed down the MIM Standard models to maker room for the premium models between the MIM Standard and the first level of MIA's. I can tell you that my recently acquired 2010 MIM Standard 5-stringer is closer to the MIA Standard than the new MIM Standard in quality and sound. In another thread we were discussing a premium MIM bass for just under $1000 Fender Special Edition '70s P Bass . For the $1000 you get a quality bass that you'd have to pay $1200-1600 for in a higher Fender model or perhaps another brand. The MIM Standard 4 banger is $600. The Squier is a lot less, but doesn't have a Fender sticker on the headstock, but they can sell a million of em with labor costs a fraction of even Mexican labor.

In other words, I don't think its as much cost cutting as positioning within their lineup. But I could be wrong.