Dan Dare

If someone examines and plays an instrument at leisure, pronounces themselves satisfied and buys it, surely that's the end of it. I'd be deeply suspicious if someone, having pronounced themself satisfied with and bought an instrument, claimed out of the blue that it was "not playable". Sounds like a chancer to me. The OP appears to feel a little intimidated by the purchaser. Offering remedial work in the circumstances is more than generous, imho. From the description of what he does - refurbing used instruments, adding Chinese hardware, etc - it seems he is not selling at high prices.

It's been three years since I left the Smoke. I guess the Gallery has changed since. They used to have a good selection. Whilst BF are undoubtedly excellent cabs, they do tend to be an automatic recommendation, when in reality, they're far from being the only option. Stevie on here offers the LFSys designs, which I like a lot. I also play in a soul band and use PJB cabs (with an AG700 rather than a TH head). They work very well for me, with a nice blend of warmth and clarity. The downside is that they're a bit inefficient and you need several to make a lot of noise.

The Gallery has quite a good stock. When I lived in London, I used to take a day off work and head for Bass Direct (straight up the M40, so not a bad journey) on the rare occasions when I wanted to make a major purchase. Go in the week when it's quiet and you can try stuff to your heart's content. Add a nice pub lunch and it's a pleasant, albeit pricey, day out.

I'm pretty sure that SKB model is 3U (I have two and they are). Not made any longer AFAIW.

Any decent cab will do the job. TH is light and compact, so take it to a few shops and try stuff with it.

If you Google "angled amp stand", you'll get plenty of options. Check the weight rating if your rig is sizeable. Not an issue with a combo, but if using a separate head, you'll need something to stop it sliding off the cab.

Good buy and schlepping it will help keep you fit 🙂

This is very true. The sound that pleases in the showroom, studio and your home is often less than ideal at gigs. I occasionally hire myself and my PA out. At one gig, the bassist had a BF Big Twin and insisted on flooding the place with low frequency mush. I tried in vain to persuade him that the object of the exercise was not to demonstrate how fabulously extended the frequency range of his rig was, but to no avail.

I reckon many silly prices are due to people being ordered by 'er indoors to get rid because the place is crammed with instruments So they put it up at a stupid price and tell her "I'm trying to sell it, dear, but nobody's biting".

Given that weight and compactness are the main reasons people choose combos, separates can actually be a better proposition. One of the crop of class D heads plus a lightweight cab (or two/more) is often a lot lighter to carry. I prefer two journeys to and from the car with lightweight stuff, rather than one with a lump. Separates are also scalable -you can add cabs for bigger jobs - and in the event of a failure, you have more options. The gear tart in me would still like an AER, though.

Probably an AER Amp 3. They are on the high side of affordable and I periodically wrestle with my desire for one.

This is a good solution ,but make sure you use a DI box that has the necessary attenuation (not all do and those which do tend to be more expensive and use high quality transformers, such as Jensen). If you're using a valve amp (not applicable with a Rumble, I know), you need a box that provides a dummy load to to the amp to avoid destroying your output transformer.

Which would support the notion that they ship to their UK distributor in bulk and items are sent out individually from there. Makes sense. If we want quicker delivery, we can always buy from and support a UK-based company. May cost us a little more, of course.

This. It would make no sense for them to despatch dozens of individual parcels to the UK. Easier and cheaper to put them all in the UK-bound container and ship it weekly. Not unreasonable of them.

You can't have it both ways. You brought up the notion of entire reworking/artistic freedom and then claimed we were discussing one semitone. Make your mind up. Interestingly, we play this number in my soul band. Our keyboard player was playing the major third on the way up as well as on the way down. We had a quick word and played him the Otis original and, being a sensible grown-up, he didn't try to double down or claim he was "interpreting" it. He just said "Thanks, chaps. Got it" and played it right from then on.