Dan Dare

Cotton stuff - tee shirts, etc - is of excellent quality and very cheap in the States. Failing that, the Mesa Powerhouse cab recommended above a good choice.

I've always been impressed with the Markbass tone if you want a lightweight. Their heads seem to work especially well with Ampeg cabs, which ain't light, sadly.

Some of the class D PA amps can be had for good prices used and will be of very high quality (Lab Gruppen, Camco , MC2, etc) and fit a standard rack case. Easily re-soId, too.

Literally hundreds of alternatives out there. What do you want to do with it and how much can you spend?

Agree with others' comments about diminishing returns and paying for the name, etc. If you want it and an afford it, why not? I'd rather spend £1k on a car and £11k on an instrument than the other way round (if I had the money of course...)

A plug for Kent Armstrong. Nice and not too pricey.

You could use a re-amping DI box, which should have a dummy speaker load, to run direct into the PA. But as others say, why not at least use a small cab for onstage sound? Waste of an amp otherwise.

Not the world's best picture. Must buy a better camera...

Makes a nice noise.

How do they do it for £100? Crismanbass is right. I'd add:

1. Employ children to build them at gunpoint.
2. Feed said children on gravel and make them sleep next to their workbenches.

Not strictly bass-related, but just bitten the bullet on a Fohhn Linea Live III power system. £7k of hi-fi quality PA loveliness. Makes my Steely Dan albums sound astonishing. Hope it does the same for the bands I play in. All I need to do now is get enough jobs to pay for it... Pics to follow

AER the obvious choice, but expensive. I play fiddle, amplified and unamplified and I'd strongly advise that a decent pre-amp is the most important thing. It will load piezo and similar acoustic instrument pu's correctly. Any reasonable small keyboard combo will suffice with a properly pre-amped signal and it will sound much better through a PA, too. Guitar amps are not ideal - they have built in mid-boost, which makes a fiddle sound very harsh. I use a Fishman pu and a preamp made by the firm that makes the Sessionette amps. Works very well. There is a German-made fiddle pickup that is mounted in the sound post, which is fabulous - can't remember the name offhand, but it's not cheap.

Treat yerself, Jebo. Stack knobs are silly money these days. A year younger than mine. I'd have it otherwise.

Nice instrument.

Denmark St was always a bit of a tourist trap. Plus ca change.

Nothing like aiming high...

Yep

Good ideas, but feel I might be wasting my time. Have tried making suggestions without success. I tend to favour finding a situation I'm happy with, rather than soldiering on.

I wouldn't do it. Commercial hirers are covered by insurance if it gets damaged. You won't be and risk losing a friendship if there's a problem.

Blimey. Is this thread still running? My four penn'orth, for what it's worth, is that goods belong to the seller until money changes hands.

As others say, it's a full range driver - note the twin cone.Would advise not tying to use it or guitar or bass. Probably low wattage. Sell it to a hifi nut.

I think brensabre's right. A clean sounding cab will give the game away when the amp stats to run out of steam.

Can vouch for Zilla. Very helpful and good workmanship.

Not too good. Everyone bar me rates the drummer. He's from a jazz background, has excellent timing and is very competent around the top of the kit. BUT, he doesn't us the bass drum properly - no oomph and nothing to dial into. He's too busy doing twiddly bits on the cymbals. Feels as if he's playing along half the time. Could be time to hand in my notice.

Lydon probably wanted to pay them all £50 a week...

Ah, the old YouTube cute looking woman busking along to a track routine. You don't even know whether they're playing or miming (even if the fingers are landing in the right places).