Xuechang Sun himself built this "Master" bass.
He has
won a number of prestigeous award over quite few years, and I have had
such good luck with his production basses; this one is indeed in a
class by itself. All of his company's basses have stunning
craftmanship; this one is as good as any of them. The materials on this
bass are as close to flawless as wood gets. Perfectly quartered,
absolutely
even grain spacing in the top, the nearly equally quartered one piece
back has the ideal scale of deep flame for an instrument of this size.
The neck and the sides must have been cut from the same part of the
same tree to match so well. The Oil
Varnish is perfect and the color couldn't please me more, it is not
"too" anything. I have fit Rubner's German made tuners, an
Aubert DeLuxe bridge, and a delicately made Ebony tailpiece (at the
moment),
Ulna Ebony endpin (German), and Spirocore Orchestra strings, though
I will include your string of choice as with any of my better basses. I
want $13,000
for this bass, much less than the previous X Sun Master bass as I got a
deal on it and will pass it on. The warmth of the sound, by the way, is
really
spectacular, but the key thing is the balance of tone across the range.