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The most I’ve ever spent on a bass was £2,200 on a Lull PJ4 about eight years ago. It was a necessity as I needed a lightweight bass at the time and sold two other USA Fenders to fund it. That was a big investment for me (though ultimately it wasn’t the right bass for me anyway). Apart from that one-off, I don’t think I’ve ever spent more than £600 on a bass. Plenty in that price range and below that work just fine for my needs.

Nice one Steve. Remind me which Altos you're using?

Phil Collins has stated that "Invisible Touch" was inspired by Sheila E.'s 1984 hit "The Glamorous Life." Genesis - Invisible Touch | Mike Rutherford

That should be a Sire thing. Exact same feeling with my U5. Became my #1. Period.

It's the law of diminishing returns As basses get more expensive there's a point at which the difference to the next bass up is negligible. I then factor in what I could afford to replace from savings tomorrow. Then I factor in how long a bass lasts - my current bass is 25 years old and has probably cost me £15 a year so far. For me the figure for an expensive bass is £1500. I don't think I'd buy an expensive bass - not this year anyway, although think it is time for a new one as my current bass is approaching a point where it will soon become the Bass of Thesius.

Aye, he had £30 to spend but a Fender cost £100 so he bought the Höfner. If he'd had a bigger budget he'd have bought a Fender, Höfner would never have got the Beatles association lifeline and went bust decades ago 👍

@Hellzero and @Dan Dare are my HiFi butlers - very helpful and practical advice on what I need to do next. Thanks After 40-plus years, my then-£109 turntable is probably due some maintenance. So, my next project will be the turntable.

Four corner ports work best, as they do double duty as braces. The 70 Hz displacement issue doesn't affect frequency response up to 100w. Above that response would no longer be linear. Usually poorly. In any event the 115/410 combination makes no sense. The standard reason for using it is that the 115 improves lows while the 410 improves highs. But 115s don't necessarily go lower than 410s, 410s don't necessarily go higher than 115s, especially off-axis. Most 410s have more driver displacement than most 115s, so where volume is concerned two 410s will usually go louder than a 115/410. The right way to get maximum lows along with the best highs is achieved with different size drivers operating in different passbands. PA and Hi-Fi have used that configuration for 50 odd years. A few electric bass cabs do so, but very few. To say that electric bass cabs are lagging behind the curve is putting it mildly.

There's a long, detailed answer that might seem somewhat convoluted, so I'll just give the short answer instead. No.

I'm a fan of relic'd basses and even though I haven't seen every relic'd bass made, I haven't seen anything with what definitely looks like a post-relic scratch like that. I would not be happy and I'd definitely contact them and ask for an explanation.

I always use one of these when fitting solid shaft knobs (snick!) as tightening the grub screw with the knob fully down causes friction as it rubs against the body, but eyeballing a gap then tightening the grub screw can result in the knob ending up slightly lopsided causing friction for part of its travel. Using a card spacer makes it always come out perfect.

'In phase' implies that one needs the phase response of the drivers to be the same. That is pretty much impossible. But it doesn't matter. All that matters is that they're not 180 degrees or close to that apart at or near the crossover frequency, and as such a simple polarity reversal of one driver is the usual fix. As for crossover design, that used to be a seat of the pants job. You'd start with a calculated component value, but to get it perfect required repeated component swapping and testing to dial in the final result. That hasn't been the case for quite some time, thanks to software like XSim, which unlike traditional calculations doesn't rely on the nominal impedance of the drivers for the calculation but instead uses the full frequency response (FRD) and impedance sweep (ZMA) plots to get an exact result. The only issue with that is finding FRD and ZMA files for the drivers, which are only gradually finding their way onto manufacturer driver data sheets, though you can measure those yourself with the necessary gear. Crossover modeling software is to crossovers as speaker modeling software is to speakers.

Genius 😂

I think I've been fairly lucky with my '25 gigs and had almost forgotten the common reality of being in an originals band; putting in a lot of time, effort and distance only to end up playing to a very select crowd rattling around in quite a big room. Well, 'Mad Friday' was spent 70 miles away doing just that. We were very much reliant on the two home bands bringing a home crowd, but possibly due to the time of year, specific day, general level of circulating illnesses, £7adv/£10door ticket price etc. it just didn't happen. We nipped into another pub on the same stretch of road and that was dead as well, so it wasn't like everyone was just camping out next door. Ho-hum. I've injured my back so the whole thing was a literal pain, but it was fun to slim back the gear to an absolute minimum and see (with a provided house cab) what I could get away with. In the end, it all went in two Mono Vertigos and one Tick bag. Ear protection worked better for being a size larger in the new material they've started making Doc Pro's out of. Footwear was a pair of the wonderfully named Skechers 'Wascana Benen' tac boots. They're refusing to break in and are absolutely eating me alive. RB Vampyre 5 (Streamer LX 5 on the K&M Heli 2 this time) -> Joyo 5GHz bugs -> T21 FlyRig v2 {DI -> PA} -> TC BAM200 -> Hartke 4x10 Have to hand it to the TC BAM - it's a great little amp and I'm just glad that I didn't let my dislike of the TE Elf stop me giving it a try.

Rat Charles