PJ-4 HTR Deluxe Series : Great Bass once set up

I got one of these for two reasons, I don't have a PJ bass and the price.

The bass is a vibrant red colour and the scratch plate is nice too, it has a satin neck varnish and mine had a small mark I could feel but that was easily removed.

The frets were smooth along the edge and the machine heads are ok. It took a quarter turn on the truss rod to straighten the neck and after some nut filing and lowering the action, the bass now feels like one three of four times the price.

I wouldn't do this if you are unsure of what you are doing but a professional Luthier could set this up to play as well as a Fender worth a lot more.

I found the pickup setup easy too, the J bass pickup needed to be raised a little to level out the pickup volumes but once that was done it was fine.

Now to the sound, which despite some of the reviews I have seen, the pickups are good and powerful, I used a wireless system so I couldn't judge any earth buzz.

The only problem I really found was the scratch plate was not fully screwed down but that's easy to fix, also the knobs were a bit stiff but taking the covers off and reseating them solved that.

For some reason Cheap basses get looked at with the stigma from many years ago but this Bass is worth every single penny I spent on it, in fact if you bought it for double the price it was at, it would still be good value for money, but at the price of £102, it's a steal. I bought this myself, it wasn't sponsored or discounted and this is an honest review.