Dan Dare

I know this thread is good fun, but do people really hide new purchases from or justify them to their partners? When mine was alive, if I wanted to buy an instrument or piece of equipment, I did. It was my money and provided the household budget didn't suffer, that was the end of it. I wouldn't have dreamt of objecting to her buying anything, of course.

If you cramp up, it's nearly always a sign you are using too much force/over-straining, unless you have injuries/physical issues. I'd look at your technique and set-up. Are you self-taught? Many who are learn bad habits, which can come back to bite them, especially once they are past the first flush of youth and the body loses some ability to withstand misuse.

At the sort of money you're looking to spend, I would think about going old school, provided you don't mind the weight. You'll get far more bang for your buck that way. The afore-mentioned Hartke, or something like an Ashdown ABM or similar will serve you well.

PA speakers at similar price points tend to be pretty comparable. I wouldn't worry.

I've often wondered about this – eBay listings with ludicrous prices - so have looked it up. Apparently, the reason is that eBay offers no option for sellers to list items as being temporarily out of stock. They can only end or take down the listing, which means the message stating “100 sold - over 10 remaining”, which is encouraging to buyers, will be lost for good. If they take orders on an out of stock item, they risk being unable to fulfil orders if delivery is delayed/their supplier is out of stock, etc. That may cause them to fall foul of distance selling Reg’s and eBay’s rules and harm their feedback ratings. As a result, a lot of sellers hedge their bets by putting the price up to something ludicrous whilst they wait to see if they can get more stock. Doing this for a short time also helps keep their place in Best Match (so their item will be somewhere near the top of the list when people search) and retains the sold history. Doing it for longer is counter-productive, however, because every visit to the listing that doesn't result in a sale reduces the Best Match weighting. Interesting, eh?

Yep. Love it. I'm 65 and still haven't found anything to equal it. Yes, I know there are duff gigs, lousy journeys, etc, etc, but a good 'un easily outweighs all that.

I prefer a tug bar if I use anything at all. I like to dig in when the occasion demands it.

That's what I did for 40 years. I had periods of playing full time, but for much of the time, I held down a day job (full or part time). I'm retired now. Yes, it was often tiring and yes, I had (as do we all) to put up with some nonsense, but you take the rough with the smooth and get on with it. The good stuff outweighs the bad and that's all we can hope for in life.

That's not a fretless. It's a worthless 😁

God loves a trier...

Well done to Ashdown. Another suggestion re Speakon plugs. Make sure, if you are assembling leads yourself, that you do not allow any stray cable filaments to short to the wrong terminal. It can happen, when you insert the stripped ends of the cables into the terminal recesses in the plug, that a single filament of copper will pass the wrong side of the plastic separator and cause a short. The terminals are close together and the space you have to work in on the plug is quite small, especially with the two pole ones. As others suggest, make sure you use the real McCoy. Some of the copies do not mate well. I found this when I tried to use a speaker cable someone gave me which had no-name copies on it. It did not fit smoothly into a real Speakon socket or make good contact. Buy nice or buy twice, as the saying goes.

Not so. Use heavy (at least 2.5mm cross section per conductor) cables and you'll be fine. I sometimes use 25 metre cables with my PA speakers (4mm cross section) and they're absolutely fine. Of course, if you use doorbell wire, you may have an issue.

I wouldn't agonise over a replacement speaker too much if you are only looking at a budget model. Just buy something that looks half promising and try it. You aren't going to find meaningful reviews of £40 drive units. You haven't lost much if it doesn't work, but I suspect pretty much anything will equal what is in there at the moment...

You didn't, but he wasn't the only great bassist who ever lived...

I love gigging. Wouldn't do it if I didn't. I can't understand those who complain about carrying stuff, travelling, etc, etc. We ought to reflect on how fortunate we are. Anything is better than doing a 40 hour week in a call centre or crappy retail outlet, which is what so many poor sods have to do to make ends meet.

My fiddle. Owned it for 40 years and it's 200 years old.

Anyone else receive the email from the MU about this? Appears they are going to pursue it.

https://www.gumtree.com/p/guitar-instrument/custom-friesian-precision-bass/1345888077

Snap. Did you have the 2x15 cab? I replaced the iffy drivers in mine with Peavey Black Widows and it was mega.

An inflatable 8x10 that you can fit in a rucksack 😊

Some types of exposure can even land you in gaol...

+1. I suspect those suggesting the OP reneges would be frothing with righteous indignation if someone did the same to them.

Everyone has to start somewhere and he does have 12 out of 12. Having said that, I'd collect if I was interested, so I could check it out thoroughly, but then I always do on the rare occasions I buy an instrument.

I doubt whether they will. Guitarists tend to like a vintage look - hence the script logo and so on. We tend to prefer a more functional look. I'm sure Alex realises this.