Does yours have a maple neck too? When I compare the fingerboard with my all-wenge Nobby, it really looks like the F1 is a different wood. I don't have a rosewood fingerboard to hand to compare it with (except for my Rics where the fingerboard is so lacquered that it's hard to be sure of its colour underneath!) but that's what the wood looks like to me.
Sound-wise, well, I've just put my Nobby, SS2, this F1, and a dirt-cheap short-scale bass I've just bought for my son, head to head. All were with the preamp bypassed, and with the amp controls flat. The first observation is that the passive basses (F1 and shorty) are much, much quieter than the SS2 and Nobby - the active p/us are obviously a lot hotter than the passives. Getting beyond that, the shorty is surprisingly not bad, but just lacks depth and character. It's like a good supermarket wine - it's drinkable, but when you take a sip of good stuff you realize what you've been missing! Then, the joker in the pack is that the SS2 is fretless with flatwounds, so that's much darker, with a much gentler top-end. It's the sound that suits me best, but of course it's not what this F1 is going to excel at. In fact, engaging the preamp and fiddling with the EQ, I couldn't get the F1 remotely close to this sound. What it does naturally, is of course a bright zingy sound. It's not my style - which is why I sold the thing in the first place - but it's a good sound. The Nobby is pushing in this direction too, but with a thicker sound, and slightly less top-end. Given the size of the basses I was surprised that the Nobby was thicker, but it's actually very dense, so not much lighter than the F1.
In the interests of full disclosure, I should point out that I carried out this test with 2 cloth ears and several units of alcohol inside me.
