They did all the important things right; it's stable, has good tone, a nice setup, and solid tuners. I'm not so crazy about laminate tops and binding- I think it would have been better as just a chunk of Alder with nice contouring and clear finish. Mine has some spots on the neck where you can see some issues with stain coverage and sealer; unfilled grain is my guess and so it looks a little dirty or gray compared to a more expensive bass. I didn't buy it to look at, I bought it for the spec's and it excels at this price point.

I have had this bass for almost 2 years. When I got it I fell in love. The neck feels great and the bass "fits" me, in spite of the significant neck dive. It is beautiful and I think the tone is remarkable for a bass at this price point. It was my daily player and it was a joy. About a year into owning the bass I started to notice some fret sprout. Minor at first, but particularly evident on the higher frets. Now the frets have sprouted significantly on both sides and up and down the fretboard. Nearly every fret end on the instrument has a very sharp end and it is physically uncomfortable to play. The bass sits in its case now (a very nice Sire gig bag), doesn't get played, and is unsellable. A fret job would cost half the purchase price and I'd rather spend the money on a new bass. It has turned into a complete waste of money and I am truly heartbroken over the loss of a bass I used to love. Caveat emptor.

I bought this Sire U5 about a month ago. The good - Love the short scale and perfect (for me) neck. It is a beautiful bass and seems to be of high quality. The bad - Fret Sprout all up and down the neck on both sides. A bit painful at times.I have knee and shoulder issues so for now I am playing while seated. The bass wants to slip off my leg so I constantly have to apply pressure using my injured right shoulder to hold it in place. Gets old while playing finger style with the same arm. Mine also has a bit of neck dive as well.So I am fighting neck dive with my left hand and trying to hang on to it with my right. Very tiring! It was a mess when it showed up and required a complete set up and a set of flatwounds to replace the noisy and rough round wounds.. I always played fender American made Jazz basses and the way the wood was sculpted on the body made them a joy to play! Oh well, live and learn. It IS nice to look at....

This bass is such a delight to play. I was a little hesitant to buy it without having played one, but I had them do the setup with flat-wound strings and a low action and it is the smoothest thing. The electronics in it sound great as well, there's a good range of sounds you can coax out of it. The short scale feels great for me as a former classical guitarist. It's also fairly lightweight and comfortable, I've played it for hours at a time at this point just having a great time. Not to mention that it's gorgeous. 10/10 I would recommend.

Just received my tobacco sunburst sire U5. Couldnt be happier with the tone and comfortable playability. I havent had a maple neck on a bass since my 72 Precision. The sires neck is great. It weighs under 8 lbs but I dont feel any neck dive as some people have noted. Thanks to Devin and the other sales reps at SW that helped me with this transaction

Beautiful bass. Love the action love the short scale. Love the weight. PUPs sound great.

Absolutely love this shirt scale bass.
Only reason I couldn't give it 5 stars is because the color I wanted was backordered

Superb. Great playing right out of the box. Received on a Friday and gigged that Saturday. The fret work is flawless. No plans to upgrade anything.
I did a ton of research on short scale basses before landing on this bass. The hype is real, Sire!
Recommend for players like me with shoulder/back/ hand pain. And maybe those who are under 6'. The body is significantly smaller than my Fender basses and combined with 30" scale, will not be for everyone.
My other short scale is an Epiphone Viola. It's a rad bass but best for light touch or pick playing. I dig in hard and the Sire is perfect. Strung it with La Bella deep talkin short scale flats.

Unfortunately for me my hands have gotten weaker as I have aged. I did some research and saw that some players recommended switching to a short scale bass. I checked out a bunch of different basses and decided to get the Sire Marcus Miller U5 Bass. I made a great choice!

The U5 is easy on my hands and plays beautifully. The pickups sound terrific and you can customize your tone. The tobacco sunburst finish on the bass is absolutely gorgeous.

The U5 offers great bass tone, playability, and aesthetics. This bass is for any bass player, not just older folks like me. I highly recommend the Sire Marcus Miller U5 Alder 4-string Bass Guitar!

I could not be happier with my Sire U5. I had it professionally set up and it plays like a dream. LOVE IT.

Your brand new Sire U5 Marcus Miller. I could not be happier with this bass. It is everything I had hoped it would be. The playability, tone, design, construction is incredible at this price. I highly recommend the Sire U5.

I love the quicker action of the short scale's closer frets, the light weight, and smaller size, which for someone who also plays electric six string, feels more natural than the long neck that my Fender Jazz had. There's no neck dive for me either...the head rides at a natural angle. Action is good. I have a little buzz on some frets on the E string, but that's probably adjustable. The finish is, as everyone has said, gorgeous. One note on finish: There are very wide variations in the darkness of the tobacco sunburst finish on these basses. The guitars range from extremely light and washed out, to quite dark. I vastly prefer the warm, rich, dark look. The good news is that Sweetwater takes pictures of the ACTUAL BASSES they are selling, so you can pick the look you like best. It reminded me of looking at puppies in a pet store window. I was able to point at the one I wanted, order it, and know just what I was going to get. When it arrived, YES! The photos of it had been absolutely faithful to its real appearance. If anything, these look even nicer in person. Enjoy.

I recently bought one of these used while the new ones were out of stock. Pros: Nice tones, easy on my aging fret fingers, solidly made and nice looking, fun to play! Thru body bridge stinging. Nice price! Cons: As noted by others, the neck dive is significant especially while sitting, and I have to monitor my position or I get a cramp in my back that I don't get with other bases. Standing up the strap friction is enough to make this a non-issue. Finally: things that are neither pro or con but different: The neck is pencil thin. The string tension is lighter than on a regular scale and you must make your touch lighter to adjust. The P-pickup tone is a little less punchy than on a regular PJ, but this can be adjusted. Overall I love it and it's my daily player most of the time.

I did a lot of research to find a bass that met my list of demands, lol. I pulled the trigger on the U5 and it totally exceeds my expectations. I'm honestly amazed at the presence this passive bass lays down. It was delivered on a Friday in flawless condition, set up perfectly out of the box. I took it out Saturday night for a 4 hour gig and she did everything I asked her to with distinction. On a side note; I have serious back problems and this bass weighs almost 3 lbs less than my now previous favorite.

i modified the body shape so it wont tilt so much to the head n gave a body countour so it wont cut into your right hand.

The bass is very nice for the price.Sweetwater did a great job of setting it up. It compares to a $ short scale bass. It is very easy to play and is becoming my favorite bass.

I primarily play guitar but wanted a bass to play around with. Looked for a short scale to make the transition easier and the reviews on this one were stellar on this site, YouTube, etc. They've been out of stock for months but saw a demo available and Israel Hernandez my sales engineer helped me scoop it up at a great deal, for a simple finish crack that I can't even see. I can't say enough about how well made this bass is. The rolled fingerboard is so comfortable, frets are perfect, the pickups sound great! It's amazing how many tones you can get from the P, J, and a simple Fender Rumble. And it's passive so no batteries to die on you. I highly recommend getting on the waitlist if you're even thinking about this bass, it punches way above it's price point. Get one!

I'm an old guitar/bass player. I had been playing a full size bass but the length on my old arthritic hands was wearing me out. So I bought one of these. It is a beautiful bass. the finish on mine is perfect, intonation and setup was quite good out of the box. Pickups can be clean or have some growl if you want it. I love the short scale, so much easier on my hands. The rolled fretboard is a very nice and comfortable touch. I had to wait a while for the Sire gig bag but I'm glad I did. It's really a soft case more than a gig bag. I just can't see how you can beat this instrument for it's price. And never feel intimidated about playing a short scale bass. It worked pretty well for Sir Paul McCartney.

Playing this bass is good. However, the price point does show in its playing. The neck pickup is good, but it is missing an oomph. The short scale threw me off, and the overall body size is quite uncomfortable. The bass is neck heavy, and the frets are sharp.

Aside from all the negativity. The jazz pick-up is good; in fact, it is excellent! If I could have the jazz pickups, I would give it a 4, but due to the overall experience, I knocked it down to a 3. Suppose you have smaller hands or are not keen on the original scale length of the bass guitar; this bass could be for you.

Other than that. I would just save to get a legitimate Fender Precision bass.

I've been using this for 4 months now and I'm really happy with it. When shipped you might need to adjust the pickup height, but otherwise it rips out of the box. Fits my smaller hands fairly well and sits right in a mix. I'm a big fan of the rolled edges on the fingerboard, especially at this price point. YMMV on the setup and intonation though. The only real gripe I have with it is that there is a minor blemish hidden in the truss rod cavity.

I keep this review simple....... it's a beast! Wonderful tone!

Fit and finish are good but not perfect. The well where the truss rod is located wasn't properly stained. There was a minor imperfection in the neck finish, and it suffered from a bit of fret sprout.
Set up and intonation also required some minor tweaks.
Pots were smooth and solid feeling compared to Sterling SS Stingray. Pickups are quiet.
The neck is glorious: fast, comfortable and easy to play. Tone is solid and versatile. Favor the neck pickup and roll off the tone for a vintage sound, crank the bridge pickup and tone and the maple fretboard really snaps.
Better fit and finish than the Sterling SS Stingray, more playability and comfort than the Ibanez AGB 200, more sonic versatility than the Sterling and Ibanez combined.
If you are only going to own one 30" scale length bass and can't break the bank, this is a solid choice. The only other real contender from the half dozen I've tested is the Fender Mustang.
Please note that finding a case is a challenge. I ended up with Fender Mustang gig bag and a Gator TSA case for travel, but the Gator required some modifications (dremel tooling a spot for the lower horn strap button and creating a foam block to take up the extra space behind the lower bout.)

I never intended to by a Sire, a short scale, or online sight unseen. But here I am and the experience so far has been great. Moses Buenrostro has been great to work with and I had no idea how much effort Sweetwater went to keep customers in the loop and to follow up on a purchase.

I intended to get a Fender for sure and probably a P Bass, but played a friends for a couple weeks and did not care for the chunky neck compared to my Squire J Bass. Then I decided to upgrade my J Bass instead, and kept running into reviews for the Sire V5. As I checked Sire out, the U5 kept coming up. At 53, I have shoulder, neck, wrist, and elbow problems and there was some appeal to trying a short scale that so many folks said was more comfortable than a 34 inch bass. But I wanted a Fender and so I looked into the MIM Mustang Bass and many discussions of MIM Mustangs kept coming back to ... the Sire U5s. But, when I looked around there was not a U5 anywhere to found.

I happen to check out Sweetwater the day after a shipment came in and were acclimating to the humidity in the warehouse. I took it as a sign and pulled the trigger. I could always send it back, or sell it around here. But for me this bass is a keeper.

Do your recon, this bass will consistently come up as something special in the short scale options. I have only had it a week (I will update this later) but the tones on this thing sound fantastic, both clean and dirty. I am 5'10 average size hands (size 10 shoe) and this bass does not feel small. The neck is so smooth and I love the (slightly less) string tension. At some point I will upgrade the J Bass, probably with a Fender Aerodyne (just something on the bucket list). But when the time comes, I am going to have to look at that Sire V5 very closely. This U5 is well built, a great bass, and at $ hard to pass on if you can afford it.

So, I ordered one earlier this week. Got here yesterday and I unboxed it today. I always do as much research as I can when looking at a bass. The reviews on this one were great and they weren't lying. The sounds coming out of the pickups are incredible. I had a short scale PJ bass over a year ago that was about a grand more than this. Hated the sound from both pickups. It went back. One of the reviewers on this bass said the J pickup was noiseless. I contacted Sire and they said it was not. Well, after playing it, that J pickup is about as close to noiseless as you can get. And, gotta tell you this bass looks much better in person than on the website or in any video I've seen of it. The build quality is great. The only problem is, it is hard to get a gigbag for this bass. Sire is out and nobody else seems to have anything that might fit. Gotta keep looking. I emailed Sire to tell them to add the cost of a gigbag to the bass and include it. It won't break anyone looking to buy this bass. If you're new to Sweetwater and need a sales engineer, ask for Rogan McGarvey. This is the 3rd bass I got from him and Sweetwater over the last six months. I thought if you bought three you would get a fourth one for free. That doesn't seem to be the case. Ha Ha Ha. Good luck bass players.

As a guitar player, with some bass background, I was specifically looking for a short-scale bass. After reading and watching rave reviews, I pulled the trigger on this baby. I am extremely happy with this instrument. It sounds great. It feels great in my hands. Disclosure: I had Sweetwater Plek it for me. I had them put the following strings on in the setup: Ernie Ball 3834 Super Slinky Coated Electric Bass Guitar Strings - .045-.100 and I feel it was the perfect choice for me. As a guitar player, I love that I can bend strings and create vibrato. The "P" pickup sounds smooth and deep, and the "J" pickup sounds crisp and punchy (with the right amp settings).

So here are my pros and cons:

PROS: Tone, pickups, looks, fit and finish, no fret buzz, relatively lightweight
CONS: Balance—quite top-heavy—significant neck dive

The neck dive isn't enough to dissuade me from owning this bass, but it is enough for me to recommend Sire update the design with a headless neck. I was going to take off one star for this, but decided that it isn't bad enough to detract from playing it, so I'll take off maybe a half point (4.5) and round it up since half stars aren't accommodated on the review.

Overall, I really love this bass and would buy it again. For a bass at this price to sound so nice, have zero fret buzz, zero low E floppiness, and other than the bit of neck dive, have a smooth, comfortable feel, I am impressed and extremely happy with it. It displaces my Steinberger Synapse V, and my Ibanez BTB-676 to become my number one bass. This bass works for multiple styles of music. Kudos to Sire (and to Sweetwater)!!!