Downunderwonder

Has two of a pedal.

More basses than days of the week.

I doubt there would be a good outcome for the OP going down this road, unless with the new model Hartke driver. Reading between the lines, the tone he got from the original driver was a lusty bark from the aluminium cone being overdriven within a fraction of a mm of its life. After some years of this it gave way. Poor little man trying to keep up with his big cousin 410.

It was a question for the OP to consider. GK did some, Ashdown too, looking at the size of some or they may have stuck with A/B. They are all a bit heavier for the tube preamp and extra case so figured it may count in his choice.

Envelope M82, doesn't get lost. Phaser, secret sauce Holden (NZ)... cold dead fingers. P&C category. Prunes and Custard, is it's own thing, so it will always be the best at Prunes and Custard. Don't knock until you tried it. Tuner, Korg pirthblack, works at night in the dark and in full sun. Octave, never felt like I needed any more than the EBS. Nice and simple, works as advertised. Overdrive, almost secret sauce there are so few around. Drum roll for UK's own Sfx RedDragon. Leaves all the meat in the sandwich when mostly overdrives either gut your lows or mess up the mids not in a good way to my ear. Best impression of a gently overdriven tube out there by far if you ask me. Desert Island DI: Sansamp BDDI.

Howdy Doody on bass?

Leaves white residue in places impossible to reach. If you wash it away you're left with green spots impossible to reach. Looks really odd to my eyes.

Who was that masked Mod?

Could also be a flat battery in an active bass. I fear we have been Lownered.

That fuzz sounds great.

I would leave the patina be also. It looks really nice as it is. Polished up would not be my cup of tea at all. You would never get it all back to shiny brass and it would look all wrong 90% shiny and 10% not.

They do sound very tubey but there's a reason for that! Does a tube preamp with Class D amp count as Class D?

1st see if Aguilar supplies reconing kits. Then find your local recone specialist.

Best, yet another preamp. Worst, yet another preamp I didn't really need. The trouble with preamps is they don't take up so much storage space and they tend to breed on you while you aren't looking.

Flat battery in active bass?

Boundary effects of walls and ceiling in the vicinity of any cab can play hell with your low end but otherwise a well placed cab is a well placed cab and will always be more lows up close to it than across the room.

How horrible? If you are exaggerating the horribleness you may be ok. It's possible that at home you can't get the output stage into the sweet overdrive mode @4 ohms because it gets too loud before that happens, leaving you with clean tone.

Remind him it could have been a whole lot worse!

Just play it with fingers like I do. No compression required.

Go down to your recycling centre and grab 20 cardboard boxes. Flatten them out properly. Laminate 2/3 them with a pot of adhesive and you have a slab of 2ft x 3ft. Cut a slightly oversized outline of your bass out and line it with an old T shirt or three, with a backplate The rest of the boxes make a prop that strategically slots onto your outline so it can lean back. Spray bomb it matt black and it will look like a bought one. You'll figure it out.

@bassbiscuits I presume your cab is for monitoring. Have the courage to point it at your ears, because ideally that will better inform you what FOH is putting out front. If it it's playing to the house then best stand right in front of it so your treble doesn't make it out there.

Undoubtably this.

"Should be", implies he well could be..... Doubtful he knows my secrets as I am a secret squirrel from outer space.

Bartleby should be employed by Europol.

My band has a set of active Alto plastic fantastics that seem to handle a bit of electric piano and vocals ok. If you're on a budget I'd say you could do a lot worse.