Just a note: if the tone of that bass fundamentally rubs you the wrong way, it may be that you just don't dig the Fender sound. I had a Squier Vintage Modified Jazz V for a while, and aside from it sounding broken, I knew even in its prime state it wouldn't create the sort of tones I was after. The pickups would fart out well before I even started playing moderately hard, much less before the strings were doing any significant clanking off the fretboard.
You could always look at the model ranges offered by Dingwall, Spector and Warwick for other options.
I think this squier is quite different than the modified 70. As I said before, I cant get the grit/growl and if I hit the strings hard enough, brings a lot of unwanted noises, not that noise that would work with a tube screamer. It´s fretnoise that sounds like shit. Anyway, apart from the grit that I cant get out, the low end of this bass in my opinion sucks big time.
Spector and warwick are great but a bit far off my price range. Ibanez BTB seems also a model to consider. Ironically, venemorte, from the forum did some tests with his new bass and sounds tits, a ibanez btb 200, a low cost bass, almost half price of my squier and sounds million times better.
Just a note on his note, it's important to consider that the squire in question (deluxe V) has more in common with a soundgear (basswood body, active pups, laminant fingerboard) than it does with any traditional fender jazz.
Yeah, I realized that after spending my money on it!lol
The bass is not bad at all but doesnt work very well with the metal genre. For others styles might work. Apart from that the fretboard is ridiculous big for a 5 strings bass and it´s not the first time that I feel that the B string seems to sound different from the rest. First time I felt this was with yamaha rbx but the bass had a shitty sound, so I didnt give much attention. Now I feel the same with this squier. Once I spoke with a friend of mine, a bassist about this, because I was questioning if it was me or the bass and he said that this is quite normal in low cost basses. So, now I want a 4 string bass. Because, the low B seems to belongs to a new set of strings than the rest, has a really different sound and this is quite annoying.
After 43587346 bass tests, I achieved a good sound but in an unorthodox way, like putting a tube screamer after the amp.
Here it is an example:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1457645/bassinmix.mp3
But it was a hell to pull that sound, there are really big cuts everywhere. I think that when we eq too much or process too much, something it´s not right with the source. So my solution it´s too change the source!lol
