Bass Lab – Supro Huntington III

The Supro instrument nameplate conjures up images of the deco flavored amps, guitars, and lap steels made before going idle in 1968. These new offerings from the Absara Audio version of Supro have a similar vibe, retaining the iconic National/Valco shape and deco appointments. These are made in Indonesia and hover around $1,000.

The body is a nice slab of ash carved in a vintage Ozark shape, with a maple set neck, capped with a pau ferro fingerboard. The weight was higher than I’d expect from a smaller-sized instrument like this one, but not unmanageable. 

The pickups are fascinating: Gold Foil style single coils. Three, in fact, separated about as far apart as you could put them on this small instrument. Each has its own separate volume knob wired in parallel in Jazz Bass style, so each could be independent from the other. The fourth knob is a passive tone roll-off that when pulled up adds a piezo bridge pickup to the mix. The oddest thing there is it’s always on full blast and can’t be mixed. You can mix the magnetics through their volume controls, but once the piezo is in, it’s all the way up, no matter what you might want. 

The bridge is a knockoff of a Hipshot design and decently built, and the keys are Gotoh knockoffs reasonably constructed. The set neck works well, and in fact, the whole construction is very competent. The finish is very well applied and looks fantastic. 

The vintage layout marred to a more modern construction, and of course the short 30” scale, make it very interesting, indeed. It looks cool and feels good in your hands. Lately, short scale instruments are all sounding pretty good, and this one is no exception. Plugged into a capable amp, it sounds way bigger than it is. It only reveals its short scale on the bottom of the low E string, where it starts to thin out. The trade-off is that the middle and upper registers sound big and fat. Typical of short scale instruments, in general. The three pickup options are placed in great spots to give a variety of different sounds. The piezo makes no sense to me in this context, and I wouldn’t spring for that option. 

The bass plays great after some adjustment, which is the only place for concern, here. The truss rod had to be maxed out to get the neck close to flat. For a brand-new instrument, there’s no room to move if it bends in an unfavorable way later on. The frets are highly polished and groomed way better than I’m used to seeing on Indonesian instruments. They left file chatter all over the fingerboard, but that is acceptable at this price point. You have to look close to see it, and it doesn’t affect the playability. 

The bass looks real cool and sounds great. The Indonesian construction is better than I’m used to seeing from there, but it still shows its head here and there (like the maxed-out truss rod). It is definitely worth a demo if you like the looks and fancy a short-scale bass. Oh, and kudos to them for stringing it up with chrome flatwounds. Great choice. 

[Editor’s Note: the Huntington III model has been discontinued, though the Huntington II is still available.]