Sparky Mark

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The Line 6 Studio 110 is about as small a single 10" combo there is/was if you can find one. It has lots of tonal variety and a puncy delivery. Less affordable but a fantastic sounding bigger than it should do option is the GK MB110 combo which only weighs 21 lbs.

I agree totally with the above. Tapewounds will push you way back in the mix. Although good for lovely warm supportive pillowy bass you'll be limiting severely the wider tonal options that roundwounds will give you with the Nordstrands.

I would expect five strings to be heavier plus wenge is very dense. I owned a maple bodied 5 string SR briefly recently and that was relatively heavy. I think that I prefer the SR with mahogany body centres and wenge/jatoba necks. Having spent my youth playing a 10lb slab stingray SRs are a breeze.

Even relatively heavy SR basses are lightweight when compared to most (especially Fender type) other bass designs. The really significant difference between the two basses you are considering is the pickups. If you can't play before buying you'll be wondering about the other. So the standard advice is try to play both first but my gut feeling based on your cutting through tone goal is you'll prefer the Nordstrands.

I've owned both Premium and Prestige SR basses and much prefer the more dynamic Nordstand pickups over the darker sounding Bartolinis. I still own and regularly gig an early Premium 1200 with Nordstrand big singles. The new prices are very high for an Indonesian made guitar but the quality, fit, finish and hardware are as good and better than anything else for the money. If you're going to pay £1200-1300 new I'd even consider buying the 4500 then replacing the barts with Nord B.S. Barts vs Nordstrand big singles is like night vs day in my experience. P.s. I forgot to answer your question; yes, the Nordstrands will cut through the mix much more than the barts if you want them to.

I've bought quite a lot of gear from them over the years. Good prices and no quibble customer services. One problem on my last order was that my EHX bass mono synth was supplied with a european pin power supply as I assume it came from German central warehouse. I had to make several calls in order to receive a physically larger no name UK power supply. Not ideal.

Thomann has been selling these for a few years now. The photos on its site show good detailing such as a set neck, body and neck binding, decent hardware and finishes. For the money they look very good. Obviously the aesthetics have been adjusted to avoid litigation. I've read they don't sound much like a Ricky but for less than a tenth of the price I think they're a stylish alternative to ubiquitous Fender copies.

So this is how you sell a bass without using the Basschat Marketplace; cunning.

I believe that particular amp is a GB Streamliner clone that had blue LEDs that shone through the oval window on the front panel. Unfortunately there were quite a few that stopped lighting up although the amp still worked fine.

It depends on whether you use your ears or an accurate tuner to set intonation. Unless you're playing a lot above the 12th fret it probably isn't that critical and "good enough for rock and roll."

Just to be clear: all Markbass LM2 heads were/are class AB. I've owned an ABM600 and still own a class AB LM2. The ABM600 is capable of a much higher apparent output than the LM2; I only sold mine because I so rarely if ever needed the huge power it possessed.

I used to gig with the CMD121P and NY121P cab and I found it could replace my LM3 and STD104HF on all my gigs with a loudish rock covers band. I ended up selling the CMD121P and buying another NY121P cab so my lightweight rig is two NY121P cabs and one of my Markbass 500 watt heads. The NY121P is sonically more capable than the combo as it has a larger internal volume and does go lower so adds a lot more than you'd expect when used as an extension cab. I'm sure that your combo plus a NY121P will be at least as capable as the STD102HF.

I have (accidentally) acquired a lefty mid to late 1970s Fender tolex P case and wondered how scarce they are as I've seen the vast majority of left handed Fender basses housed in right handed cases. A Google search has only resulted in a couple of examples (although my Google search skills aren't great). Here it is with a right handed bass inside.