binky_bass

On Tuesday I bought a Marshall VBA400 with a Marshall Jubilee 410 and 115 cabs. The handles on both cabs are pretty damaged and when playing through the VBA400 the plastic handles rattled a lot! (I was aware of this prior to purchase!) I gave Marshall a ring on Wednesday to ask them if they knew where I could get replaced handles for the Jubilee cabs (bear in mind these cabs are from 1987) and within seconds I was put through to a very helpful lady that arrange for 4 handles to be sent out to me for a mere £25 all in. They arrived today, very well package and exactly matching the handles from the Jubilee cabs. Great service! 👍

I had a CTM300 that I recently sold. Great amp, but not particularly intuitive in terms of dialing in a preferred sound. The Marshall was very easy to get a great tone from. Personal preference, but as it stands, I definitely prefer the Marshall to the CTM300. The Marshall is VERY close to the sound I had from my Mesa Strategy Eight:88.

I doubt I'll ever really move it unless I sell it. The Epifini and Berg rig on the left is the 'gig rig'. Might use the Berg or Mesa cab with the Marshall live on the odd occasion for fun, but those Marshall cabs are nearing 40 years old and deserve an easy ride at least while in my custody!

@tom1946 - Crafter BA400EQ are great basses, often can be found for £150-£200ish second hand. I've owned probably 4 or 5 of these at least over the years, all really well built, all do a fine job of being an acoustic bass!

There's a Bergantino 412 for sale on here that I'm tempted to pair the VBA400 with, but don't really want to get rid of the Jubilee cabs as A: They're 1987 so YOB for me and B: Sound genuinely great! Looking forward to giving it a proper run tomorrow at band practice, which luckily doesn't involve moving it!

So, today on the way home from a work trip I met a chap that sold me an amp... That amp was a Marshall VBA400 with a Jubilee 410 and 115. The cabs have seen better days, cosmetically they have their war wounds, but the work a treat! The amp has a few tiny little marks, but would probably rank 8.5 out of 10 for condition. Just lugged this colossus down to the garden studio some 300ft away from the driveway (yes, my spine is now dust) and set it up. It's quite monstrous... it's current set at about one quarter volume and gain and its still making my ears bleed. Given it has 8 KT88 valves powering it I shouldn't be too surprised. Pumps out +400w of glorious Marshall valve bass goodness! Given I play 6 string bass, and mostly prefer a more HiFi sound, I am pleasantly surprised that the 'bright' button really does hit the mark for me. Been lusting after one of these for probably 20 years! Happy to now have one and not be disappointed.

They might be asking for a video of the fault to then be able to process it as a faulty return and as such pay the return postage. If they have no evidence of a fault, you might be shouldering the return postage cost. Could also be a newbie not understanding correctly the way things are done! I'd tend to give the store the opportunity to do the right thing, call them up, explain the situation and my guess is they'll straighten this out. I've used this retailer before many times and only had good service, that's just my milage, but this could all be a misunderstanding or a new recruit not quite getting things right!

Give everything to me, I'll 'store' it for you for free, you can have visitation rights once a decade. Totally fair...

Absolutely second those sentiments... DONT get Jon to build you a bass... get your money back. He is not a skilled luthier. The bass he made for me was unplayable. The intonation was WAY off and because he built it with a fix, wholly unadjustable Bridge, (not what I ordered) there was no way to remedy the intonation and it had to go back to him and when he sent it back (uninsured to save himself a few quid) it was damage in transit due to the poor way he'd packaged it. DO NOT GET JON TO BUILD YOU A BASS. Get you money back and put a deposit down on a trusted, skilled luthier such as ACG, Shuker, Overwater, Zoot etc.

I'd bet a decent chuck of money that it's just another way for him to long out the situation. I'd be going back to court to obtain permission for bailiffs to seize assets. If you take away his tools, no one else can become a victim to his scams.

Interesting that you took that away from the 9 pages of that thread...

My 2 Cents have been added to the TB thread...

I've had the misfortune of owning a few of his basses, they are trash. The 7 string I ordered from him years ago had a fixed bridge with filed saddles that couldn't be moved and it was positioned in such a way that the intonation was way WAY off and couldn't be adjusted therefore was uselessas an instrument. The build quality was quite poor too. The price is there for a reason. Literally any bass you could buy brand new at that same price point will be better. Don't waste your time and money dealing with him, you will get burned.

No! There are no jokes! YOU'RE a joke... (What's a joke?) But... those basses DO exist and ARE terrible. So there... 😝

These are absolute trash. Chinese built to the cheapest and lowest possible standards, not a viable instrument at all not because of the string count but because of the awfulness of the build! Take the string off and the frets out and you've got a half decent ironing board. And this is coming from a massive advocate of ERBs! Now... if we could please take a moment to cleanse our eyes by looking at some good ERBs!

@EddieG - Letts has 4 or 5 basses for sale on Reverb. You could instruct the bailiffs to seize them to be sold at auction, they might collectively make enough money to pay you back. Jon would also be far better off just paying you your money if the choice given to him was to have all the basses seized and sold or to pay you want he owes you.

Given it a good, thorough inspection... ● No dings or marks anywhere ● Overall look and feel exceeds price paid ● GuitarGuitar definitely set it up ● Low action ● Nice neck ● Fret edges are sharp and need filing ● Crap strings (that was always going to be the case) Not plugged it in yet, but except needing to change the strings, and assuming it all 'works' when plugged in, for £99 it's a bit of a steel.

It has arrived... I shall report back in a few hours once home from work...

For Science!!!