Dan Dare

For small, good quality bass drivers, you really need to be looking at makes like Volt, which won't be cheap. They will also take a fair bit of driving and you have limited power at your disposal. Bill's and casapete's advice above is the better and more economical option. Something like the smaller Rumble will be light, compact/easy to carry and inexpensive.

Have a look at the construction of BF cabs. Then have a look at the internal structure of something like a B&W Nautilus cab'. You will notice similarities in design and construction. I'm not a BF user (I'm a PJB fanboi). However, there is some physics behind BF designs. They are not simple boxes. Companies such as Trickfish, Aguilar (I use an AG700, which I like, so I'm not singling them out) and others operate similarly - they offer well constructed and nicely finished kit built with established, good quality components (Eminence drivers, IcePower modules, etc). They are not pushing any design boundaries, however. It's a free country; people can use whatever they like and I don't care what they choose. The OP asked for opinions on TF vs BF cabs and I gave mine.

If you Google something like "Drum software", you'll find plenty of cheap or even free options. Once you put a pattern on the screen, you can see how it works - where in the bar various things happen (kick on 1 and 3, snare on 2 and 4 at its simplest, etc, etc) and take it from there. Won't take long to learn how basic patterns work.

Trickfish are essentially decently made plain boxes with good quality (usually Eminence) drivers. If prices are comparable, I'd go for BF, with their better designed cabinets.

Dunlop nylon? I've got dozens of those. I'm rich beyond my wildest dreams 😜

I find you can't beat a good set of headphones for tone at home volumes (unless you spend a lot of money). Keeps the neighbours onside, too.

Both. Usually a Dunlop 1mm nylon when I use a pick.

This is quite a useful guide - Understanding Guitar Pots and Caps | Potentiometers Capacitors Wiring (artisanluthiers.com)

I use 5" drivers with mine, but you need lots of them (I have up to 20 at my disposal).

I don't mind the fact that an instrument is dirty/not looked after as long as the price reflects the fact. No big deal to clean it and happy to do so if it means I get it for a bargain price.

Sadly, it was the whole cab.

I too had a Peavey BW 15 in an old Fender 1x15 cab. Great speaker until some little scrote pinched it.

That's surprising if it's hypercardioid. Given that a snare is loud and cuts through, you often don't need a particularly great mic' on it, especially for live use. That's why the good old SM57 often gets used for the job. It's pretty insensitive to anything that happens more than a couple of feet away and the response falls off sharply at both frequency extremes. They're not expensive second hand. Worth trying one?

I had an SVT210HE, which I really liked. Not too heavy, portable and small enough to fit in the car boot. I ran it with an SVT15E, which worked well, but I really wanted another 210HE (which were no longer made). I eventually sold both and got what I have now (which I'm very happy with, but they cost me quite a bit). And what do you know? I came across a mint used 210HE a short while later. Sod's law.

Probably not. You may find that if using a lot of gain, which means the tube requires more juice, the 200ma supply would not be beefy enough. Apart from that, it shouldn't make much difference.

They normally just drop into the covers. They're not fixed. So if you do have an issue, just put them back in the originals and keep schtum when returning them

Exactly that.

It's a free country and you're welcome to do it any way you like. You may or may not get it to work doing it that way. Bill was explaining the way to get the best result. Ideally, you need to be able to control the frequency ranges and relative amounts of power going to the subs and tops. If they are very different in terms of efficiency/sensitivity, you will struggle to balance them. Used power amps (especially old school - i.e. class AB/heavy) can be picked up very cheaply these days, so it's worth picking one up. An inexpensive basic crossover from someone like Behringer isn't going to break the bank, either.

Much good advice above. A 15 won't necessarily produce more lows than multiple smaller drivers. Chris B raises the important point of efficiency/sensitivity - how much acoustic output you get for a given input power. That is down to cab design, as well as driver type/size. Simply adding a large single driver cab won't necessarily give you more of what you want, especially if it produces a lot of subsonic or infra bass, which can cause issues with the PA via low frequencies travelling through the stage floor, up mic stands and into mics. It can also muddy the sound in the room.

Toilet seat "was brown and worn, now refinished". I'll, er pass, thanks.

Yep. They will probably move production to somewhere cheap, but continue to charge the same prices. Even if they don't lower standards, they will still be quids in. I happily paid the high price (compared to other brands for an equivalent) for an AG700 because I liked the fact that it hadn't been built by children in the Far East earning minimum wage.

Same as. Can't stand the over-hyped, frantic tone of many YT vid's. No doubt people making them have been told you have to "grab" or "engage" the viewer. Just pees me off and I'm more likely not to watch.

Given the price of the amp, changing valves (or at least, more than one of them) would not be a cost effective option. Assuming it has separate pre and power sections (it may not at 5w) you could look into substituting the preamp valve for a lower gain version.