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Lovely, same as mine! 🤘Excellent choice - I’m amazed how many people admire the colour…..it really strikes with everyone.

If you have nothing against remote digital exams and ebooks, Trinity is offering the "same" 8 grades as ABRSM, at way less. I bought the whole shebang for the 8 grades, including scales, arpeggios, exercises, pieces, sight reading, music theory with workbooks and model answers as well as audio, for £247,01 this year, just to reassess my level for fun and only for myself with my tutor, but without taking the exams as, at 60 years old, these sheets of paper called diplomas are of no use for me and I can already play pieces from grade 8. As a new subscriber, you get 25% off on your first order, and if you buy a bundle, you'll get 50% off on one sight reading book (the cheaper IIRC). Until today at 23:59 there's also a 25% off without being registered. This is what I bought: https://store.trinitycollege.com/collections/piano-exam-pieces-plus-exericses-from-2023-extended-edition/products/all-grades-bundle-piano-exam-pieces-from-2023-extended-edition https://store.trinitycollege.com/collections/piano-exam-support-material/products/sight-reading-piano-initial-grade-1 https://store.trinitycollege.com/collections/piano-exam-support-material/products/sight-reading-piano-grades-3-5 https://store.trinitycollege.com/collections/piano-exam-support-material/products/sight-reading-piano-grades-6-8 https://store.trinitycollege.com/collections/theory-of-music-workbooks The syllabus is free: https://www.trinitycollege.com/resource?id=9166 https://www.trinitycollege.com/qualifications/music/grade-exams/about And here are the fees for all and everything: https://support.trinitycollege.com/support/solutions/articles/202000096448-fees-and-payment-uk-ireland#:~:text=This article provides the official fees and,are outside of the UK and Ireland%2C Worth a check, no?

To add a little to what Phil has said, it is tricky to truly compare like with like across different manufacturer's offerings without just building some cabinets and having a listen. One spec that's not always published but does tell you something useful is Xlim. That is commonly defined as the actual amount a speaker can move before damage. Celestion have provided info on Xlim in email exchange before, I've always found them very helpful. In general I've always found Celestions to perform very well in practice. Gigging rig years ago was a pair of 12" Celestion PA drivers, Xmax 2.5mm. Never ran out of juice on a gig. A decade ago I built two 110 cabinets loaded with sadly discontinued NTR10-2520D. The Xmax is 'only' 4mm (I chose these over the long-throw E version due to midrange response) but mechanical Xlim is 13mm. I have used single cabs as subs before for indoor gigs and again they've never come up wanting. On bass, the pair cover me for anything I do up to the point where I'm on a stage where serious monitors and PA take over. In contrast I have blown Eminence Deltalite II 2510 before and reading online this seems to be fairly easy to do. Xlim somewhere around 8mm I think. Published Xmax 4.2mm and same wattage, but not the same class of driver as the Celestion in practice.

Bass bins obvs. 😄

Seventh Wave - Devin Townsend

Seven Days - Corrosion of Conformity

You mistook it for a guitar?

Ordered some strings yesterday at 10:40 and they were on the doormat in the morning! Fantastic!

I bought it and used it for firewood

There's a happy ending to the story. The amp is now fixed and there was nothing wrong with the power module. I'm going to describe it briefly, in case someone else has the same problem and finds this thread. The Amp Genius who fixed it initially took off the top cover, unscrewed the aluminium front panel, cleaned everything and it started working again. Until he put the top cover back on , when it stopped working again. There were two problems: firstly the front panel wasn't earthed, instead relying on the securing screws fixing it to the chassis for an earth connection. Secondly , the pots are mounted on the front panel and connected to the PCB by thin metal strips with a 90 degree bend and a shoulder that goes through the back of the PCB. The shoulder of some of these pot connectors was making contact with the tracks on the PCB, and causing a short. The fix was to file back the shoulders of the offending pot connectors, and properly earth the front panel to the chassis. I've included an amp guts picture I took at the time which illustrates the panel and pot connections. For an added bonus, the thermal sensor on the heat sink had failed, so AG replaced it with a 50 deg C sensor and the fan now comes on and off when needed.

Yes indeed - and just like her version despite all her denials, it is very real indeed - and it's not all Other People's Talent. Well, not always...

Best I've got is my old Greco EB3 in the back yard.

I would think that anyone who learnt piano when they were young would have been at least partially funded by their school, and of course piano lessons and books were a lot cheaper in previous years. In the 70s, my sister who is completely and utterly tone deaf progressed as far through the grades as was possible until her inability to sing or distinguish the pitches of notes counted against her more than her ability to press the right keys at the right time according to the score place in front of her. Our piano at home which was inherited from a relative had several notes seriously out of tune with themselves including at least one that was seemingly in every piece she learnt to play, and which made it painful listening for the more musically inclined members of the family. I'm pretty sure my parents wouldn't have encouraged her as much as they did if it had been costing them any serious money, and if they had the cash then employing a piano tuner would have been a better use for it.

...compared to a Fender Rumble 60? Short question long: I currently play P-bass through a an Ashdown After 8 15W (for acoustic circles) and a Fender Rumble 60 (for gigs without a house PA). For the level of gig I play at, these are loud enough. But they're both old and heavy (I can relate), so I started looking into some of the ultralight bass amps for the acoustic circle - like the Joyo DC-15B. That lead me to discovering the PJB Double 4, and the thought that potentially I could replace both my amps with just the PJB, and get enough volume and light weight. I appreciate watts aren't just watts, and the PJB must be doing something clever to get good low end out of the 4" drivers, so it might be quite inefficient? I'm playing 60s and 70s folk through to rock mostly, so a fairly clean tone, just a touch of compression and a Behringer BDI21 for a touch of drive. As I say, for my purposes the Fender is just about loud enough, so if the PJB could match it, it could be a contender. I'd also welcome any thoughts on the sound of the PJB vs. the Fender. I'm happy with my sound, I'd just like it to weigh less! Thanks, Tom

I get that. I've never smoked either, but I think the smell of a pipe being smoked will always be "the smell of a proper pub" in my mind.

Yes - let's! Bass By The Bins! Which might either be a reflection on my modding skills or an entire new sub-topic. Either way I think I've now given the poor thing a complex...

steady gigging across the covers and blues bands, including new venues and material. see the originals band do some decent support gigs and maybe a headline in a good local venue. see the originals band record an album. maybe a bit of depping to satisfy my urge to learn new stuff. try and do some songwriting and home recording (and strengthen my music theory). finally get Teen Town and a couple of other songs that I would like to be able to play properly to improve my 'chops'.

Rainbow - Rising What a cracker!

7 days - Sting

One of the very few second hand bits of gear I've had was what turned out to be a well smoked Orange SP212 and Roqsolid felt-lined cover. Tried bicarb and various other things but the smell never left it, so it had to leave. Having experienced that, if I found myself in the OP's position it wouldn't matter how good the deal was; I'd be sealing the box back up and telling them to get it collected and refunded.

Happy birthday to you too! Well, never say never. If an old codger like me can still do it...