The BTB's are a great line and pop up cheap all the time. And the Soundgear dominated the 90's.
The Spector Pulse line is pretty great, I have the 4-string-
I think that was $890 new from Fret Nation, but GC seems to have a shit ton of them these days so if you got one around go check them out, there's a 4 and 5 string. Ibanez Soundgear's dominated the 90's and the BTB's are badass, you can find the higher end ones for under a grand used and I'd aim for that as Ibanez' quality in their lower end models sucks these days.
If you go for a 5 and can test it out first, spend some time listening to how well that low B is balanced with the rest of the strings. If you're getting a crazy sub funamental tone, move onto another bass because you won't dial that out unless you're only playing that low B string and even then it'll be a bitch without a multiband comp kinda kicking it's ass into shape. I had a nightmare of a time on a cheaper Warwick with this and I swore off 5's as a whole until I played enough I could drop to A and they were perfectly balanced top to bottom.
One thing I definitely realized that I would genreally argue vehemently against with guitars is that the more I stepped up in price/quality, regardless of brand, those 5-strings had a shitton more depth and clarity than the cheaper models. Neck-thrus in particular. If you have a decent selection local, check it out to see what I'm saying. Whether or not that's important to you is a total different story. I think the bass in the vids above is pretty good sounding and there's minimal shit in the signal chain, but the experience I'm talking about is a whole other layer of depth where the second you give that low E or B a smack and you can hear that full EQ range in the acoustic, unplugged tone.
P/J pickup setups are great for versaility, obviously from above they can get heavy and gritty just fine, but if you're going for straight metal, I'd keep your eyes peeled for a humbucker/soapboar setup. Those alone go a long way in the depth area. Active pickups are definitely more common in basses than they are guitars and while I can see why, they certainly help with clarity and kinda do that compressed thing without being too much.
