To me, Alembic established themselves making custom circuits.
When i think of Alembic, it's the tone, the combination of exquisit woods & comprehensive eq ( the entire package ).
So i'd have to sit on the fence & say both!

I agree with bassman68 that its the whole package I go for. I'd love to get a series bass but I don't really take to the large body style of the series basses on four string basses, to me they look a bit overweight. The Epic does not appeal to me and nor did the Excel until I saw a pic of one with what looked like a coco bolo top that looked gorgeous and very tempting.
 
If money wasn't in the equation I'd go for  Series electronics in an SC, Europa or Elan or even Orion body style would be my favourite choices.
 
For the six string bass the Series Omega styles start to come into their own but i don't think I need a 6 stringer at this point in time.
 
As for woods, I love the look of Coco Bolo best and other darker woods with contrasting sandwich slices. I'd love to see an alembic bass with a very dark and streaky madagascar ebony top.
 
Saying that if  a series bass came around at the right price then I don't think I would really worry too much about the shape.  
 
Alembics are quite beautiful works of art that you can use and have great sounds and electronics.

Hey Keavin
 
I'm sitting here playing Rory's old Maple Series I (back left in the pic).

Can I vote again? I've had a new MK Deluxe for almost a week now, and I've been playing around with the sounds and comparing it to my other basses. I found that if I crank up the treble on the bass and the amp and let go of the strings, all of my basses put out a high pitched buzz... except the Alembics are dead silent. I have Signature electronics, Europa electronics, and Excel electronics. On the basses that buzz, some are worse than others. Does anyone know what makes them buzz?  
 
Anyway, I'm pretty much sold on the Alembic electronics now. That's a huge difference.  
 
Mike

Mike - basically Alembic just shields the electronics the proper way. There's no magic, it's not at all expensive, and you wonder why other manufacturers don't.

Mike,  of course you can vote again - it is a mbass players perogative after all!
 
Congrats on the new MK Deluxe..happy Xmas

Adriaan, I was thinking about this some more... you're right about the shielding, but I think the low pass filters might have something to do with it too. Anything above 6kHz on the Alembic gets rolled-off by the filter. The cut-off on the other basses must be a lot higher.  
 
Mike

Wood is the soul and spirit, where electronics are the rational -- the logical reasoning of sound. The spirit is of God, directly.  
 
Logic/reasoning = Free will.
 
As an wise Owl knows for himself, The wood is king.

Mike - now if you had said hiss instead of buzz ...
 
There's the roll-off starting at 6kHz, but there's also quite a bit of a BOOST around the roll-off frequency, which would accentuate any hiss. Remember that a hiss doesn't really have any single frequency, in fact it has a wide range.
 
Another big factor is of course the quality of the components!

Hiss! I couldn't think of that word yesterday  I'm not that great at describing sounds.  
 
Mike

I'm not that great at describing sounds reminds me of a couple of old guys sitting in their nursing home having a discussion..
 
It's Whoooom! says one.
nope - it's Whuuurrruumm! says the other.
 
actually it's womb says the young nurse.
to which one of the old guys says  how the hell do you know what a charging elephant sounds like?
 
Graeme ;-)

In response to the wood/electronics question, I believe it to be the synergy of both. The high frequency hiss could very well be the grounding in the house wiring. Make sure the grounding cable is bright and tight against clean pipe.

Take the electronics out of an Alembic, and it is no longer an Alembic (IMHO).  Drop Alembic electronics into a non-Alembic, and it becomes Alembicised into something more than it was.  I think that answers the question from my perspective.  Stunning as the woodworking may be, it was the introduction of studio quality tone-shaping in the guts of the guitar that really set Alembic apart.

Remember, modifying other instruments with Alembic guts came before Alembic instruments.  
 
Bill, tgo