Jono Bolton

I've honestly never heard anyone say a word against Ampeg. Are you sure you're not thinking about Ashdown? They've long been a proper "love-it-or-hate-it" amp.

New head, now with a new volume and distortion pot. I love the slightly squat look of it. I still have the Mark IV but I need to list that for sale at some point.

Someone on my street was selling one of these for £75 last week; I was sorely tempted to go and get it.

That looks amazing

Good to know there's a long-scale version; I thought they only had short-scale. Is there much neck dive? It's always a concern for me with these types of bass.

The colour looks like this Ltd Edition Power Blue: https://rguitars.co.uk/products/hofner-verythin-ltd-edition-bigsby-power-blue Are these Hofners any good? I quite like the look of the Verythin Bass

The string makes contact with the fret, not the fingerboard. That the fingerboard material makes a difference to the tone is a myth IMO. The only thing that might make a difference to the sound is the fact that maple fingerboards are usually lacquered and will potentially resonate less, but the difference would be marginal.

Maybe not the cab for me then as the Peavey Century is a pretty bright-sounding head

The 2x12 looks tempting. 200W at 4 ohms is enough for me as my head only puts out 120W at that impedance.

Not sure about that; the second-hand prices have shot up over the last couple of years. If you mean the 70s P Bass, that's still available to buy in shops so the second-hand value might be lower, but for the discontinued models you're easily looking at £300 if you sell in the right place. I reckon the 70s P Bass, and all the current CV models will be discounted in the next few months.

Same for me; it's a bit disappointing to see that they're merging the VM & CV lines but keeping them all under the Classic Vibe banner. The Matt Freeman P Bass is made by the same factory as the CVs and the neck on mine is probably the best I've played. I'll definitely give them a look when they come out but I doubt I'll be buying. Andertons has them for pre-order with delivery expected in March.

I thought that the white CV was a special run from more recently than '09. Didn't know that they did them prior to a couple of years ago.

Not at all, I'm positive it said LPB earlier; I even put in the original post. It's not impossible that I tuned out though and made an derrière of it.

As said previously, keep an eye out on the Marketplace on here. There are definitely bargains to be had; I passed up a Squier Matt Freeman P Bass neck for £60 a couple of years ago that I didn't think at the time that I needed. I should have bought it just as a spare, if for nothing else. There was also a Squier James Johnston Jazz neck that went for a similarly ridiculous price. The only problem is that you need to be quick!

Doesn't say anywhere, and a lot of the designs are the same as, or similar to, some of the VM bases made in Indonesia; 70s Js, the Ps look like the VMs but without the J pickup, plus they're doing Jags, Jazzmasters and Mustangs, as well as Thinline Teles which were all part of the VM range. I noticed as well that they've got BBOT bridges and look to be fairly standard, whereas the old CV basses had heavier bridges and different mounting screw positioning, which meant aftermarket bridges would just drop straight in. The more I think about it, the more it seems like these are just tarted-up Vintage Modifieds.

There's a shop in Glasgow that has a used-but-mint Sonic Blue CV Precision at £369; the prices for these are lower than that, and lower than the current CV stock. It'd be interesting to see if they're the same quality.

My first thought was that it looks nothing like LPB. The rout for it looks a little big when you zoom in on it.

A whole heap of them. Js, Ps and Bass VIs, in sunburst, black, Olympic White (P) and Lake Placid Blue (J). Some of the new CV guitars look good too: https://www.thomann.de/gb/search_dir.html?sw=fender+sq+cv+bass&smcs=a2fdba_730

I was thinking a TOM bridge and a trapeze tailpiece

I just had a look to see what bridge it had as I wasn't familiar with the bass. I know that they're the standard bridge used on most types of bass, but I can't get over how much it doesn't fit in with the overall design.

A green scourer attached to a Black and Decker mouse allowed me to take the gloss off an Epiphone SG in no time at all.

Luckily, with old Peavey stuff it's really easy to get inside; the head has separate front and back panels so just four screws need to be removed to get into it, and you can leave the back panel in place. I phoned my local amp tech to ask about having it replaced, and I was quoted about £25, which isn't too bad for a job that I wouldn't be comfortable doing myself. They also be better placed than me to identify if it is just the pot that needs changing, and not something else such as leaking caps.

I've been poking the straw on the can inside the wee hole in the pot to make sure the Servisol is getting everywhere. How much Servisol should I be using? I been giving it a fair few big sprays but I watched a video on YouTube where a guy was having the same problem with an old Yamaha and he was absolutely drenching the pots, so perhaps I'm not using enough. Here's said video; the noise from his amp isn't too dissimilar to mine: