You can see the body has a few dings, but I am told the bass plays beautifully.
1) You have been sending in lots of lovely examples of the SB-R80 recently.
Firstly Riccardo Abbate of Rome, Italy sent in photos of his bass complete with the original bright blue flightcase! Riccardo had wanted such a bass for years, and finally bought this example from someone called Hans in Sweden.
You can see the body has a few dings, but I am told the bass plays beautifully.
It is interesting to note that, unlike most SB-R80s (such as the one below), the truss rod cover does not state the model.
But at least this one tells you where it was made!
2) Just a few days later, James Coghlan from the UK sent in some photos of an SB-R80 in that most beautiful honey-like finish.
James had to replace both pickups, but otherwise the instrument is in mint condition and looks like it has hardly been played.
As you can see, the truss rod cover gives the model. A truly gorgeous bass!
3) An old photo of an unknown reader and his SB-R80.
4) A British reader, whose name and photos I have stupidly misplaced, wrote in to tell me the following about their red SB-R80. (If it was you, I'd love it if you could re-send your photos.)
“This is my second Aria SB. The SB-R80 was a spiritual successor to my original SB-1000 bought in 1979. The one-piece neck and heavy body provided great sustain, whilst the pronounced “angled-back” headstock combined with the brass bridge pieces offered exceptional tuning accuracy.”
“My only complaint was the sudden loss of sound when the batteries ran down. The tone was always 100 percent with no gradual loss of sparkle, so it was difficult to know when battery replacement was imminent. I sold it after two years when that band split and bought a Fender Squier Precision and Tokai Jazz Fretless. Two for the price of one!”
“Then in 1982 my local music shop in Harrow found this SB-R80 hidden at the back of his stock room. Brand new, boxed and never played but 3 or 4 years old! It was exactly what I was looking for : a passive version of my old SB-1000 but with two pickups and a nice matching headstock in red. The Squire bass was sold on and the SB-R80 has been my workhorse ever since.”
“Twenty years on and I now added a 5-string active American Deluxe Precision to my collection. This is a class instrument, but the Aria still has the best “playability” factor
using medium/light gauge strings.”
5) Mike Brooks of Denham in the UK had an SB-R80 in Pearl White.
Mike says, “The bass has quite a bit of wear and tear, some of the pickup screws are missing, one is well past its useful life.” At some stage, someone has replaced the original machine heads with Grovers.
6) Italian Diego Alberto is a mine of useful SB information! He has sent in three photos of what he says is a very rare finish of the SB-R80, also available for the SB-R60.
According to Diego, this is a 1981 model which was only available on the Japanese market.
The name of this finish is amber sunburst with code AS.
Please continue to send in your SB-R80 photos and stories folks, but only if your bass is in some way different to the ones already shown on this page.