I recently purchased the Vintage Sunburst model (the Black seems better) for my office folks, I went for this bass because it is inexpensive and considering that it's going to exchange hands with many people in the office, it seemed like an inexpensive investment. The bass however is not of my liking, the balance is off; the neck is way heavier than the body and when standing with the strap on, the bass hangs neck down. This also affects the speed of the player since the fretting hand has an additional job to keep the neck up. I had to stick 250gm weight on the body to balance it out (jugaad). The neck of my bass was a little bent too so I had to tighten the truss rod quarter of a turn and I wasn't comfortable doing it myself since the quality looked fragile. The action was high as well but I believe that's usually the case with all mass produced basses so that one doesn't get a vibrating noise when testing out the instrument during purchase. I had to reduce the action to my liking. One of the split coil pickups was a little loose and I had to tighten it myself. The sound isn't soothing either, the tone hardly makes a lot of difference.All in all, I wouldn't recommend this as a beginner bass, my preference would instead be a Cort Action Bass, which is a little more expensive but is a much sturdier beginner instrument. If beginners have a higher budget an Ibenez or a Squier may be better.