B-650 Black Progressive Series : Brilliant for the price, but has some flaws

The bass I received has a very good quality neck, amazing considering the purchase price. The body and hardware is also very good. On this basis, the price/performance is incredible. The pickups don't seem to be particularly good, but I guess this is to be expected, given the price.

There are however a couple of issues.

The original strings were unplayable. I replaced them immediately.

The main issue is that, at least for me, it is very difficult to slap/pop on this bass, due to 1/ interference incurring if a string touches the neck pickup when mute slapping, and 2/ due to the neck pickup being too close to the neck, making popping difficult.

I'm considering pulling out the pickups, replacing the bridge pickup with a different one, and putting a cover over the neck pickup hole. Perhaps a small redesign should be done. I'd rather have a single bridge pickup a bit father from the bridge (like a Stingray) than these two pickups and the resulting issues.