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Maintenance on a vintage instrument (replacing parts/ rewinding pickups) devalue the originality and the value which is why I doubt they’d use them unless they were just better. Otherwise they’d sit in a case.

The APT drivers were changed years ago from a proprietary non-standard attachment to a standard 1 3/8" screw on. The horn in your picture looks like the old design. A picture of your driver would confirm if it's the new design.

Cancelled.

If anything I’d drop to D if the guitarist is finding Eb awkward, as agree upping to E makes it sound a lot lighter.

When you turn your spare room to a drying/curing room using an eBay clothes rack and some hooks lol

I’ve done the meths soak and it’s works even better than I hoped. It’s quite remarkable. I prefer them to new strings. All the zing and is back but they feel better than new! Brilliant! I wish I knew this years ago.

She’s a rainbow - Rolling Stones

Bought a pedal off of Aaron. Great communication and very quick delivery. Deal with confidence!

Sound on Sound has reviewed a lot of active PA cabs over the years. If you look up the equipment reviews on their website, there's a lot of useful info. In your position, I'd keep the XR 18. It's a decent unit (especially for the money) and Improving on it significantly is going to eat a fair chunk of your £5k. Unless you need more channels, I'd stick with it. I agree with you that subs are essential if you want a solid kick sound from the PA. The weight saved on passive cabs isn't great, when you factor in carrying power amps and the additional speaker cabling. The average class D module adds a kilo or so of weight to a PA cab, which isn't a lot, so I'd look at active cabs. It's possible to get great sound with compact kit, but you won't do it cheaply (the formula is light, powerful/high quality, cheap - pick two). The best combination of sound and portability I've heard came from a pair of Nexo 10 top boxes plus one of their bandpass subs. It was amazing for its size and super clean and powerful. However, Nexo don't make active cabs so you'd need quality power amps, which would put their stuff well over your budget. The same applies to many of the compact but powerful and high quality rigs from companies such as DB, Fohhn (which I use), etc. RCF have a lot of fans - deservedly - on here for capable, but not crazy expensive PA gear. Ditto Yamaha (which bought out Nexo a few years back, acquired its tech' and incorporated it into their own products). Their DXR PA cabs and DXS subs are very good. QSC, which cost about the same as Yamaha, are also worth a look. A pair of DXR12 or DXR10 top boxes and DXS15 subs would come in at around £3.5k. If you're running subs, it's a waste putting anything larger than 12s on poles above them, when low frequencies are being dealt with by the subs. Quality 10s will be fine in all but the largest venues, which will save a bit of weight and bulk. Spend some of the change from your £5k on some quality mic's. If you're using SM58s or similar, you can do a lot better. It can be difficult to audition/try PA gear, but it's worth doing so if at all possible.

Big key changes. Tonight we will rehearse Boys of Summer. All straightforward except timing is critical with long pauses as a twiddle or two in the bridge. So it's all about tone. We've been debating... singer offered us two choices: A or E (in which case he sings an octave down). Original sounds huge in D# and even E sounds lightweight to me. I tjink A would be worst of all possible options. I want to dig my heels in for E at least.

To be a pedant, the electric guitar on Led Zep 1 was predominantly a tele! It wasn't until Led Zep 2 that Page used the 59 Les Paul, but then again that was also released in 1969! I would agree with you about old instruments. I would also suggest that guitars from different eras have a slightly different sound / feel and that instruments that we now consider vintage were used on earlier, ground-breaking recordings leading them to be considered a reference sound that everybody thinks a bass (or whatever) should sound like. There is some magic in many old instruments. I recently played an old pre EB Stingray at a guitar show and it was far and away the best Stingray I've ever played, despite owning a few decent EBMM ones myself!

The 90th Anniversary semi short scales (was it 4005?) seem to sell for over £4K, so the pricing doesn’t surprise me. The semis might arguably be a better attempt at an SS bass. I doubt Rickenbacker will have any trouble selling the 4030s though, even at that money. I guess it is supply and demand; limited run and no doubt they will at least hold their value, if not appreciate. I would still love to own a Rickenbacker but that sort of money puts it well out of range, even if it were a perfectly designed and executed short scale. Shame.

I have turned up at a studio and taken out a vintage instrument and the artist's eyes have lit up like a christmas tree. I do not believe I played any better or worse, but the artist felt that they were getting the real deal.