I first played a Status in 1985, I've wanted one ever since. I love the concept of a graphite neck and a headless bass. Finally in 2009 I had the cash to get one and put in a custom order.

What I got was absolutely beautiful. I was offered a choice of 2 maple tops and it looks great under the aqua finish.

The carbon fiber neck is stunning. It's also very beefy, not a slim neck by any standard.

Other than choosing my specs the only customizing I did was ask that the standard walnut center block be replaced with an alder center block with a walnut face to reduce the weight a bit. In my emails with Rob Green I mentioned a number of times I really want the lightest bass he can make. He replied he knows what I mean and I left it at that but this thing's a tank. I can't figure out where the weight comes from but this is heavier than any other bass I own. That was a surprise.

This switch mount is super lame. Instead of using a nut to mount the switch like everyone else they've decided that the switch will be mounted only by the small tabs soldered to the circuit board. So every time you use it it wobbles and flexes the solder joints. It moves side to side and in and out of the oversized hole. I complained about this but was told it's normal. I can't see this as good design.

The rest of the preamp is much better. The placement of the frequency centers worked well for me and the sweepable mids were fun. It was easy to dial in a wide range of useable tones. This could have been my main bass if it weren't for the frets and the service. Both pitiful.

This fret job should never have left England especially on a $3000 bass. The fret tops were rough, you could see that they have been rather strongly leveled but not crowned. And then the fret was somewhat polished.

I have no idea why a brand new properly made bass would need such a severe fret leveling. I emailed Rob Green and he said they don't do crowning at all and that my bass should have had better frets and he was sorry. Which was as far as he was going to go as any attempt to get him to repair the fret work would be met by ridiculous standards Rob would insist on. After agreeing that he did not do a proper job he told me that I would have to ship the entire bass, not just the neck, across the world at my expense and then if he decides to fix it I'll only be out a few hundred dollars for shipping. If he decides he didn't send me a substandard fret job I would have to pay hundreds more on top of that to get the defective bass back.

It soon became clear that he had no intention of fixing this bass and when he said he wouldn't fix it and I could get a refund or nothing I jumped on the refund. This is the shortest period I ever owned a bass.

If you look at this photo you can see the vertical grind marks that come from the first step in a fret level and the flat top of the fret itself. When done correctly the next step is to crown the fret until the grind line is very thin and the flat top is rounded. Then a quick polish leaves a perfect round fret. But since it wasn't crowned the polish had to be done much more aggressively to remove the deep grind marks and as a result the fret ends at the side of the fingerboard were rounded over too far. This combined with how close the frets are on the Status 5 strings to the edge of the fingerboard compared to the 4 string models allowed the G string to fall off the fingerboard when played. This was immediately noticed by everyone who played it.

I can only guess as to why a new bass had such a strong leveling. Maybe it was damaged in the shop and instead of refretting it it was just ground down until the damage was removed. Either way this pathetic fretwork ruined this bass.

This photo shows how close the G string is to the edge of the fingerboard. Looking at the Status website this seems to be a feature on just the 5 string models. I see this as a design flaw that should be fixed. It's clearly much different than the way the 4 strings are made.

I really wanted to like this bass as there is so much to like about it but it is the only bass I've ever owned that was un useable. I think I just got a lemon and pride prevented Rob from admitting he made a mistake. I don't think he's used to anything but gushing praise and couldn't deal with criticism.

I'm still searching for a good headless...