I wondered myself if it is possible to upgrade the active circuit of my S1 from the Board 100 to the Board 300 of the current S2.

Has anybody done this? What would you expect how much the costs are?

At first: Do you think this is possible? An additional upgrade to 18 V would be nice, too... ;)

In theory yes, it is possible.
New holes would need to be drilled for the additional controls though.
Pickups should be the same though, so no worries there.

What Voltage do the S1's work on if not 18v?

The drilling of new holes could be an issue unless the existing holes line up exactly with the holes from the old board. Your bass could end up looking like a Swiss cheese!

A couple of options are an Aguillar OBP-3 or a U-Retro. Both are superb pre-amps and the way each is wired means you could use the existing holes and add new ones to fit in with these. I know Trev (G-77) fitted an Aguilar in his Series 3000 and was very happy with the end result. I have also fitted one in an Energy and it was much better afterwards.

I used to have a Jazz bass with a J-Retro and it is a wonderfully flexible pre-amp. The same pre-amp is used in the U-Retro but it is not Jazz plate mounted.

Keep us posted as the project progresses, with pictures if possible.

I asked Rob about that kind of upgrade for my own S1 / Board 100 (operates with 1 9v battery), here is his answer :



Board 300/301 seem to have the same pot layout as Board 100 :




3 holes seem to be necessary : 1 for the switch, 2 for pots.

Well if you can fit a board 301 without having spare holes I recommend it. It is an excellent pre-amp.

Regarding getting the pots to line up with existing holes, there is no reason why you cant desolder the pots and put them on flying leads to overcome this; Then just make the new holes as required.

Looks like it is easy, considering Robs answer. But how would I know where to drill the holes and how to work on the battery housing???

Hmmmm.

Seems like I have to ask at Status directly. I don' want my 'Baby' to be drilled like a Swiss Chesse without knowledge and I don't want to make any trial and error stuff.

Maybe I can send Status only the body? Or would it harm the warramty? Taking the neck off is easy to do I presume.

If it's a bolt-on, then yes removal is very easy (as long as you dont have LED's in the neck, there would be associated wires if that was the case)
Best idea would be to email or phone Status themselves about this, though I cant see taking the neck off would void the warrenty

Yes, I think writing them is the best idea. (My spoken English is rather bad.. ;) )

Then I will know if the upgrade will be worth the money or not.

But thank you for your thoughts anyway!!!
I apreciate it!
:)

As Chris said, I put an OBP3 in my series 3000 & it made a huge difference. I had to drill an extra hole which was a bit scary but apart from that i all went well. My bass had room for 2x9v batteries.

If you dont want to drill the extra holes in your bass, you can configure the OPB3 to work with 3 pots. This would be stacked volume/volume - mid/with pull Mid freq selector switch - stacked Bass/Treble. & have it run on 9v.

If you are not keen on soldering BestBassGear offer a pre wired service for an additional $40usd, Though the above configuration isnt standard so you would have to talk to the about it first. But they did suggest that was the way to do it when I enquired about the opb3 with 3 pots
http://www.bestbassgear.com/aguilar-o...preamp.htm

here are some of the standard wiring options
http://www.aguilaramp.com/pdf/support...g_obp3.pdf

Before

After

The Aguilar seems to be very interesting. I think I have to have a look on this in more detail. Maybe I can fit one without having the need to drill holes. Maybe I could use stacked Treble/Bass pot and one stacked Volume/Blend pot...

Thank you for all your help! I think this is the best way to go.

BTW: Does the Aguilar make any noise? Or is it rather quiet?

The one I had was very, very quiet.