I have been playing Ibanez Basses for over a year now and have put my Fender basses under my bed. The action on my Ibanez is beyond comparison.

My axe of choices is the 2009 Prestige Soundgear SR5006E OL, and a 1994 SR506TT that I converted to fretless. I had a SR406 but made a mistake and sold it.

Recent I came across a 1991 catalog that featured only the Affirma AFR Bass. I read that it was discontinued because of production costs and nosy piezo pickups. The design was also later utilized in the Ergodyne EDA basses.

At a closer look, I can see a lot similar feature that were in the original AFR design, in a lot of the currently produced basses by other company.

I think if it were re-issued with the same style body design, oil finish woods, the same electronic as the SR5006E and two Bartolini picks or maybe one Bartolini pick, and Mono-Rail IV Bridge under the Prestige banner, you would have a real winner.

And I promise you I would be the first in line to get the 4 string, 5 string and 6 String versions of it.

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Your right, but if you go to Rolf Spuler web sight (http://www.rolfspuler.com/gb/, this sight is in english), he talks about, how Ibanez give him back his copyright to the design, and they still have a good working relationship.

There are some bass by other companies that are very over priced and sell. MY SR5006E cost over 2 grand and next to some of the other brands out there I got it at a bargain.


From Rolf Spuler web sight, under product:

"in 1990 ibanez launched the afr ‚affirma’ bass, of which some 750 units were built until 1996. the instrument was totally my creation and manufactured under exclusive license in ibanez’ custom shop at fujigen, japan.
my relationship to ibanez remains on best terms to the day. i particularly appreciate their generous return of the copyright which enables me to continue producing afr basses."

He goes on to say;


"however, i did not want to reintroduce the affirma absolutely identical to its original – specifically i was still after that very beamy, rich, growling bass sound the ibanez original did not fully yield to my desire. to lower resonance frequencies, i made body and head plate bigger. a traditional pickup with a wide magnetic field has been added to supplement the clean piezo pickup, and newly developed electronics generate subbass sounds of never heard impact."

What I am trying to say is that ibanez products are worth every penny you pay for them.