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No worries. Glad it's all sorted now and yes it is likely my email went into a black hole as the timing fits. Good to know. I must confess that I thought you were ignoring me so went with another product. Also doubly annoying to see the Oxford PMT has one in stock that I could have tried (I swear that wasn't there when I looked before). Should my new purchase fall through I'll be taking a closer look at the AA 50 R in future. It looks killer versatile.

That's good to hear. Thanks!

Hello all! What are people's thoughts on using Ashdown's AA-50-R as an upright bass combo? It looks awfully similar to a PJB Cub in terms of advertised spec, but of course the devil is in the details. I sent an email to Ashdown around a month ago but never got a reply about this. Ideally I'd try one, but 1) There isn't one near me 2) I don't want to try one and break it

I'm going to guess that a huge part of their sound is the strings used and playing style more so than the actual bass itself. The first would could be easily achieved by changing the strings over on the Yamaha, the second may be too difficult for everyone except Charlie and John themselves

Thanks y'all for the warm welcome. Most appreciated @FinnDave I hear you! Both my electrics are from PMT in Oxford, and are both far better quality than is required for someone of my skills. Speaking of gear, my two electric basses are a fretless Warwick Streamer Stage I and a fretted Sandberg California TT. Amp is a Peavey Combo 115. However, the bass I'm most comfortable playing is my double bass, through an Acoustic Image Coda.

Hi everyone! I'm a bassist based in Oxford UK. Strictly amateur, but enjoy playing all styles. Any Oxford love here?

Yamaha's YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sM0Hn9zcUMc

Your two basses sounds like my ideal pair to own to be honest. Not sure what the MK would add over these two, but it's hard to judge without playing them myself.

Back on topic, I'll be interested to hear this new Yamaha, but my wallet's telling me that I won't be getting one of these. My gut reaction is that for the majority of situations I wouldn't be able to tell the difference and so I'd prefer to hear samples in a band setting. Heck, in the mix an NS Design can be mistaken for a real upright!

Off topic, but do you own both the MK and Yamaha? To me they look really similar in intent so do you pick one for a particular situation or are they interchangeable?

Yeah, I'm going to be giving some Acoutic Image love on this thread. You just need to be prepared to tailor the sound to the room as it's very sensitive to room boundaries. The support from Acoustic Image in times of need is staggeringly good. I stll get advice and probably spare parts on my 13 year++ coda. Many years ago some neanderthal "borrowed" my amp and blew my woofer. AI shipped out a new one no questions asked, no cost to me. The amp was around 5 years old by that stage. The new ones are pricey but the old ones are still performant, and turn up second hand around the place. The warranty statement on their website seems to have changed since I last checked as it no longer covers second hand stuff, which is a shame but Rick at AI is a very nice and approachable person.

His name's Bob and he seems to operate from his home. I know he used to work in Abingdon, moved away for a while then came back. I don't know where he went but it may well have been Wales. He is (current as of 2019) working in Abingdon.

It seems to backward to me. It's much more likely that my bass breaks after someone trips over a cable and knocks it over rather than someone breaks into my car (let's be honest, they're not getting it through a smashed window either, they'll have to blow the blaaaddy doors off.) Yet if all I care about is the insurance paying out I should be leaving the bass on-stage all night rather than in the car. I'm not arguing with you @Jezyorkshire, you're absolutely right. I'm hoping that some common sense prevails should I make a claim rather than saying I expect it.

Oh duh, for some reason I thought you meant double bass. If it's electric bass I've had a few services done by RPGuitars. Very fast turnaround and my basses played so much better afterwards. https://rpguitars.co.uk/

Jonathan Glithero is based in Oxford and did a good job on my bass many, many years ago. He's moved house since then so I don't have any contact details but you should be able to find him online. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-glithero-93b15017/

That's true, but then I'm stuck as the instrument is so big and my car is so small that it is literally impossible for the bass not to be visible inside it.

It'll be a blanket with the contours of a double bass. On a more serious note, when I raised this as a possible problem with Allianz over the phone, the guy at the other end said something along the lines that he had to say that for every instrument they insure and that he cannot say anything that was off-script. The implication I took from that and a few other things he said was that so long as you've taken reasonable steps to safeguard your bass then you will still be insured despite it being technically visible inside the car. But then don't trust a random person on a basschat forum parroting third-hand information. Phone Allianz up yourself to confirm and you'll probably get a similar response to me.