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Just last year I dropped in to a Hi-Fi shop and got chatting; one of the folks there said they had a system set up and would I like to have a listen. So, I sat down in front of the rather expensive, out of my price range system and he put on some music. I said it was a bit disappointing and was lacking something, it seemed a bit lacklustre and had no life; he said hang on a mo and went and tweaked some settings. Suddenly the missing stuff was there. I asked him what he'd done and he said he'd switched the mode of the power amp to Class-A.

Unless you have a poor record deck, low frequency rumble should not be an issue. My quite modest deck has virtually none (you have to press an ear to a speaker when the stylus is on the run-in/run-out grooves and there is no music playing to hear the faintest hint of it). Ditto surface noise. Once the music kicks in, both are un-noticeable. Look after your vinyl and pops/clicks should not be an issue. As I say above, different strokes for different folks. You do you, we'll do us and we'll all be happy.

It's the same with most things. The most extreme case of performance is probably cars: the difference between a supercar and a hot hatch; that last 10-15% can cost £1m+. I think the differences in Hi-Fi can be quite subtle. It's ironic that musicians will happily discuss upgrades, pickup sound, valve amps, digital vs analogue, feel, and so-on, but yet argue about whether a system's ability to reproduce those subtleties is a real thing or even relevant. I don't understand how you can separate the quality of the music from the quality of the reproduction.

Sell it and then buy the fretless version of the bass... Ho but Jaco took the frets out........ Sure DIY if you like (or pay a someone else to DIFY), your looking at firstly getting the frets out without any chipping, then filling and re- radius'ing the board/slots + maybe CA/Epoxy/flatten/polish...and don't forget your side fret markers are now pretty much useless as they are cantered in the fret not over the lines/notes so drill out fill and redrill all those...Or just get the board replaced (much easier) Or just go buy a cheap HB fretless to see if you bond with it...have fun Have fun

Operator -Midnight Star

There's sound reasons for using a separate power amp - keeping low level signal processing away from high power amplification can lead to big (ISH!) gains in fidelity... I even do this with my bass set up, though I use a PA power amp rather than bass-specific. At one time I even used a passive pre-amp (some swear by 'em) though that was only because it came with a pair of Lumley 120w valve mono blocks (beasts! took 20 minutes warm up before you could play music, and 20 minutes on standby before powering off in order to preserve the 8 x 6550 valves per channel). But sound principles can go out of the window with hifi - we had a sound recordist at the BBC who swore by directional cables, cable lifters, high capacitance carbon fibre cables, separate hifi earth spike and those funny little Shakti stones that improved the sound immeasurably (!). And this was despite his BBC training!

I saw a converted one (not aBBNE2) the other day with block markers which I previously thought made it impossible to do, but obvs isn’t. I know two luthiers, one now only does his own brand stuff, and the other I not sure if it is something he would take on. I normally do all my own repairs etc but I have never pulled frets out.

Do it. Some people might say that a bass that was originally fretted won't make an ideal fretless, but as long as you get a decent tech to do the work it'll be fine. It's really just a matter of removing the frets, filling the gaps with some kind of wood veneer, replacing the nut with a lower one, adjusting the bridge and perhaps putting some kind of finish onto the board. It'll also be completely reversible if in the future you decide to go back to fretted. I'm sure someone will mention lines getting in the way/distracting you and fret markers being in the 'wrong' place for a fretless, but with daily practice this will become a non-issue, and in the long run will help with intonation, especially beyond the 12th fret. Just had a look at Yamaha's catalogue and the bass in question already has an ebony fretboard, so you wouldn't need to worry about having that finished, which makes things easier.

If you're more after AlNico than Ceramic, DiMarzio AREA J might be worth a look. I had a DP248 once (well, I actually still have that one but no bass it would fit in). Can't say anything bad about it. It sounded like a J-pickup in the bridge position.

It takes some people ten years to become an overnight success... Agree with all you have said in your larger post. My day job has nothing to do with music, music is a hobby to help me do something different from resolving complex IT and management issues. It's cheaper than Astrophotography so I reckon thats a bonus Rob

The EMGs are a lot of that sound. It's a Reverse P and a J. The placement of them is further "south" than many "conventional" basses. This means that because of the placement of the bass coil of the P, it is picking up the strings much further back than a non-reverse P in a conventional more "north" placement. Then we have the preamp in that Spector, which is a vintage HAZ unit, that will be working with the EMGs in a way that gives the signature Spector sound. The HAZ sounds liked it's dimed on that isolated track. Dimed HAZ pre-amps have a sound that is specific to that circuit design, very distinctive and unique to that combination. It depends how far down the rabbit hole you want to go but even if you had Mike Starr's exact bass, rig and settings, you'd get close but you'd still sound like you playing it. When Mike Starr was recording that bass line, he was trying to get as good a sound as he could with the gear he had (on a decent record company budget) and he'd have been influenced by his favourite players, his band mates, the engineer etc. That iconic sound is the result of a lot of inputs from various people. It's good to explore and dissect some of your favourite bass tones, we can learn a lot but we have to understand the constraints we have with the gear we've got. And, when we play as part of a band (whether live or recorded), the sound we get sits as part of a mix and a lot of the detail that us bassists obsess about can be lost, or just isn't important to the audience. I've seen many great/legend bass players playing their own iconic bass parts live on different basses through different rigs and getting a different tone and it's all good. On the complete flip side of that, I take great pleasure in "Spectorising" bass parts in my covers band. Sometimes I think, "how can I make this sound as Spector as possible and get away with it?". I'd also say that if you get creative, an Ibanez GSR200 and a Zoom B1x together are capable of producing more good bass sounds than any normal person could use in a lifetime. So many bassists have had a career on one pickup bass with minimal effects. You've got a vast palette available. Go explore!

I have an EMG J set and EMG 3 band EQ in my Sandberg TT4. I do like it but I fancy a change to something passive and less hifi. It also currently has the ABC control that means when both pickups are full you don't get that classic jazz mid dip - often useful but also not entirely traditional jazz like. Whatever I get must be humcancelling though. What is good these days? I noticed from @Kingbassist rig video that many pit pros are using noiseless Barts but I can't tell what model - and there are a few choices - any ideas? Or maybe the noiseless Nordstrand? The Aguilar DCB set looks good - but it's very expensive. I'm looking for something vintage, deep and plummy that works well just with a passive tone control. Another thing I really like is when polepieces are flat with the top of the plastic - not protruding at all so if I do have them very close to the strings I don't get any string on pole clicking. So covered pole recommendations are good too. All recommendations welcome!

Don't Hang Up - 10cc

Shielding the whole of the pickguard, not the cavity, can take out a bit of treble on a strat or similar, and I like a real bite to my guitar tone (Martin Miller style) so that’s why I did it in strips as minimum as possible. can’t see why it would be any different on bass? And again I like the jazz bass high mid growl so if I had to earth the pick guard I would do it as minimalist as poss.

Do it. Onwards!

"I hear you telephone thing, listening in..."

Thank you so much! I wrote the Nathan East inspired track to go with my demo video and, it seemed fitting to use a 6 string headless as Nathan has one too. Love that bass!