Ibanez TMB100-MGR Talman Bass

overall does the job, seems like the neck has to be shimmed as the high frets (past 14th) are unplayable.
finish is well done, the neck socket fits perfectly. The nut is hacked by a caveman but its just aesthetically rugged, it works as should. No technical issues with it. The tuners feel okay and the bridge is cool.
Onto the "issues".
Idk why they placed the string tree where you adjust the neck curve. You can't access the truss rod without removing it. It's a stupid design flaw that im not sure how hasnt been fixed in the run of these basses.
It's mostly annoying.
The second issue is the neck. It's so thick I have never experienced a guitar with a neck this thick and it's funny since Ibanez at least to me are known for slim necks. This one feels like a sewage pipe in your hand. I think it's twice as large as your average ibanez wizard neck.
As of writing this I think I may keep it but it will need adjustments.
I will have to shim the neck, shave down a lot of this tree trunk neck and replace their electronics with simple pots for volume for each pickup, maybe a tone if i can fit it in somehow. The knobs you cant really turn independently of one another and the active EQ is kinda useless in my opinion.
Overall this bass looks cool and that makes it a keeper, for the price the issues mentioned are forgivable and can be fixed, especially since there isnt really any competing guitar shape except the j-bass.

Ok, let's start a semi in depth review!

Fretjob's good. It's a 200 dollar bass, it's got some proud frets if you wanna go waaaay low but for now it's fine. Maybe I'll get around to do a full level and crown when I'm itchy to polish those "dirty" frets. A plus for doing a nice job on the edges. None of the frets wants a blood sacrifice, and that's a good thing.

The neck itself is a DREAM to play. One of the most comfortable neck/fretboard/fret size combos I've ever played. I mean it's fantastic. I did not expect it to be that nice, I'm LOVING it. I could go with a tad more junk in the trunk but really, it's just LOVELY. Fretboard wood's also feels very nice. Jatoba, I believe. Very, VERY, V E R Y nice!

Pickups are fine! Didn't expect that, but they're ok. A few usable tones out of both. They're not perfect and solo'ed even less so but the smack-in-the-middle setting gives a nice P tone mixed with enough burp from the J bridge to keep it tasty and present in the mix. It snarls well enough. They're cool. Would I change them to Geezers? Absolutely. But not right away.

The preamp's ok. Didn't fiddle with it too much but you can add or subtract treble and bass. It's ok. Nothing impressive and I don't much care for active electronics so... yeah. It could be useful for on the fly adjustments, I suppose. Tone shaping... eh...

Bridge seems fine. Sturdy enough.
Tuners are serviceable. They seem a little cheap and fragile but they work smoothly enough.
Everything's bolted on correctly.
Finish is good. Didn't see anything obvious. Couple of negligible blemishes but I'll probably put more dents on it so I don't care.

It came set up pretty ok from Thomann. Needed a few adjustments, nothing too excessive.

Now the bad.

Pickup screws are crap. And the pickups need to be lowered quite a bit, which isn't easy.

Nut's badly cut. It does its job but it's a very shoddily cut nut. Had to tidy it up quite a bit.

String tree's the cheapest piece of metal I've ever seen. To be expected but, oh well.

A few shoddily cut places on the pickguard. Pretty negligible as well, just me being way too nitpicky.

Now the pots. I absolutely hate them. Two concentric ones. One's a volume/blend and the other is bass/treble for the preamp. I HATE them. The concentric crap are so tightly bunched together they keep bumping the other control whenever you turn the knob. They're kinda stiff, too. One's sticking out too high from the guard, as well. And I'd certainly prefer a tone control over the preamp. I'll be getting a bunch of 500k pots and I'll rip out the preamp and convert it to passive. HATE them.

Worst of all, the bridge pickup routing. It's by far the WORST routing job I've ever seen. If you'd told me they did it with a drill and a screwdriver, I'd believe you. Corners have "teeth", there's no line that's actually straight, the J "ear" cuts are totally eyeballed. WORST. ROUTING. JOB. EVER.

I can live with it (after I go at it with a file...) but yeah, BAD. SHAME!

It's got a set of rounds on it that sound... well, ok. I'm used to playing with flats for such a long time time it's a welcome change. For a while. Already got a set of LaBella 760FS waiting to be put on. Guess I'll wait til the roundwound novelty wears off again. Although, I do think this would sound amazing with a set of black beauties...

In any case, I'm quite happy with the bass, overall. It needs a few stuff but for the price, it's quite nice.

After getting a bit more into funk, I've decided to buy a bass. The TMB100 was quite an automatic choice since its nearly rude not to buy an active bass at this price.
This BASS is a pleasure to look at as the Mint Green is an eye catcher. Came setup straight away so all I had to do was plug it into a BASS amp, and its magic. Its very playable, and I'm already getting some practice momentum. Minor deficiences with this bass as I had to shield it since a small hum was coming out of the amp when IM not touching any of its metals. Otherwise, its a great guitar!