Your best (and worst!) bass gear purchases of 2025?

[Richard R]

Worst purchase: set of Ernie Ball strings I bought on a whim at the guitar and bass show and haven't put them on.

Second place best: the Smoothhound wireless kit I took in px when I sold my EBS Session 60 amp. It buzzes and plips like anything on stage, but in my practice room it's silent and means one less lead. Which makes it easier to pick up the bass and practice.

Best purchase: In person lessons! I don't practice enough in the week to get the maximum value (blame the job) but I am slowly and measureably improving stamina and repeatabilty and adding to my technique.

Big shout out to Chris at at The Instrument Factory in Newport Pagnell. 

 

[Richard R]

On 02/11/2025 at 01:32, YellowLedBetterBass said:

First of all (and probably least interestingly) a wired IEM set up using a pair of KZ ZSN Pro 10s and a Behringer P2.

 

Good solid IEM setup there.

[ghostwheel]

Basses:

Best: Music Man Stingray 4 3EQ fretless, 2005, just one off the shelf, nothing special, but feels and plays the best

Second best: Music Man Stingray 4 2EQ, 2005, same as above

Third place: Harley Benton MP-4, occasionally fitted with Tone Pump Jr.

Rather good: Spector NS Pulse II

Worst purchase: Fender AVRI '62 Precision

 

 

Gear:

Best: Ampeg SVT-3 Pro

Second best: Aguilar Tone Hammer preamp v1

Worst: Ashdown Mi10 with a 3rd party speaker

[Woodinblack]

Well, I have bought quite a lot this year, and it is a bit hard to pick out individual bests

 

Best:

Rickenbacker 4003s - Its very good, I dont' have any issues with the quality apart from the stupid pickup thing, and once you get round to having the right strings on it (which it didn't, it had a regular 4 string set) it is great. Its currently my only taking out 4 string, which means it is in drop D for the metal group

Boss XS-1 - great pedal. Again, with the metal group - a lot of the songs are drop C or C# or something, so with the above bass this can get put in for those songs so I just need a standard tuned 5 and a drop D 4 and I have everything covered. This is the most transparant drop tuner I have used and as a side trick you can merge in an octave up for a nicer richer feel. If it had memories or midi, it would be perfect, but for what it is it is great.

Worst:

nothing really bad, I guess the Sei flamboyant is the worst in that I don't really play it as it is too big. But maybe I will just tune it at F# standard and use it for the metal group!

[TrevorR]

No “worst” and no contest for absolute BEST for me - my Sandberg VM4 in Marley Blue bought in January. I just love this bass. In fact, it’s pretty much kept both my Wals securely tucked up in their cases all year. In fact, it’s so good, I’ve got a Superlight on order which will hopefully make it onto next year’s thread!!!

 

Edited Tuesday at 09:33 by TrevorR

[Sean]

Best?

 

Without a shadow of doubt, it's the LFSys Monaco. 

It's not just a cab that I like, it's changed how I think about backline and what the function of backline is.

 

The Monaco changed the narrative completely for me. So many people have commented on my sound since having the Monaco and it's not the character of the cab that’s doing it, because it's FRFR, it's how it disperses the sound and enables you to be heard. 

 

Yes, it's light, it's compact, it goes incredibly loud and drowns out a vigorously played drum set, of course it does and these are features that we’ve come to expect over the past 15 years or so from high-end boutique cabs. It nails all the modern expectations but what’s different about this, and what puts it apart from anything, is how it does what it does and that is the feature that makes this such a good product.

 

The construction of it is also top notch and beyond that of comparable UK boutique builders. 

 

I absolutely love these cabs and they've changed the whole gigging experience for me; I can now hear the detail of what I’m playing all the time and don’t have any of that mid wash out that sometimes makes playing notes guesswork.

 

I've got 2, and together, one horizontal and one vertical it's like another dimension as @stevie demonstrated at the SE Bash recently.

 

 

 

Worst? 

 

Nothing, really. If there was, it would have been returned. 

 

Edited Tuesday at 19:25 by Sean

[FretsOnFire]

I was going to say my squire 60s precision bass but a few days ago I purchased a Digitech Drop pedal and that has replaced it on top 😂 wanted one for ages 

[Mickyk]

Don't know about Bass gear, but the best purchase by far I've made this year is this little tyke.

 

It was actually a pic our 5 month old Cocker Poo but it's an  HEIC file so it wont work for some reason, unless someone knows an easy fix.

Edited Tuesday at 14:27 by Mickyk

[Richard R]

Take a screenshot of the image and use that. A quick and dirty way to change format 😀

[tauzero]

Or load it into Irfanview and save it as whatever format you want.

[Chris2112]

I realise now that I haven't bought any musical gear at all this year, for the first time in a long while. 

[ezbass]

I bought an end pin stand for my NS WAV4 and that’s it. I haven’t bought a bass, or anything else bass related (excluding the end pin stand), since Sept 23! 😢

Edited Tuesday at 22:06 by ezbass

[Godfather20010]

Darkglass Alpha Omega Ultra. Absolute weapon, worth the hype and the wallet pain.

 

[miles'tone]

Best is a Harley Benton mahogany bass uke and a set of the Galli-Kala flats for it.

I take it everywhere as it lives in the car. I'm playing and learning 10x more now. Best £150 all in I've ever spent.  As a very busy dad of 2 with autism, It's really made a huge difference to my overall mental health. My fam is reaping the benefits too as I'm a much less frustrated and now happier daddio these days 👍

[Greg Edwards69]

The best purchase was my Darkglass Anagram. I've only had it a few months, and it's getting rapidly getting better and better with DG's speedy updates. They're so quick, I'm struggling to keep up!

 

Worst was some IMA Helix presets. There's nothing wrong with them - they sound great. But redundant now I've moved over to the Anagram.

 

Honourable mention goes to my GR Bass 1x12 active cab. It's fantastic and logic-defyingly light. But it only gets used for rehearsals. That said, this and the Anagram have made loading in/out of rehearsal and gigs much more enjoyable.

[Al Krow]

23 minutes ago, miles'tone said:

Best is a Harley Benton mahogany bass uke and a set of the Galli-Kala flats for it.

I take it everywhere as it lives in the car. I'm playing and learning 10x more now. Best £150 all in I've ever spent.  As a very busy dad of 2 with autism, It's really made a huge difference to my overall mental health. My fam is reaping the benefits too as I'm a much less frustrated and now happier daddio these days 👍

 

What a great story!

 

Pics please?! (And same to @Greg Edwards69 maybe with your full rig if you have one to hand?!)

[TrevorR]

26 minutes ago, miles'tone said:

Best is a Harley Benton mahogany bass uke and a set of the Galli-Kala flats for it.

I take it everywhere as it lives in the car. I'm playing and learning 10x more now. Best £150 all in I've ever spent.  As a very busy dad of 2 with autism, It's really made a huge difference to my overall mental health. My fam is reaping the benefits too as I'm a much less frustrated and now happier daddio these days 👍

That’s so good! And it’s important too. It an be  a slog and wearing, can’t it. I know that it has been with our lad.

[tubbybloke68]

Acquired two basses this year, early in January a Goodfellow spitfire 5, and then in the spring time a Yammy trb5 mk1 slapcut job . Both completely different but I’m really enjoying that, and it’s a privilege to be the lastest custodian of them x 

[miles'tone]

4 hours ago, Al Krow said:

 

What a great story!

 

Pics please?! (And same to @Greg Edwards69 maybe with your full rig if you have one to hand?!)

 

[dmccombe7]

Some really nice gear listed so far. That blue Sandberg i especially like.

 

2 purchases for me this year not including stage gear.

 

#1 Barefaced 212 cab that is now my main gigging cab along with the HB WB-100 amp. Could do with a little more mid punch but i've recently increased the mids to 3 o'clock and its made a huge change in tone. Not much happened from 12 to 2 but 3 was a WOW moment.

 

#2 Next off was a set of nut files to let me lower the strings a touch on my Overwater J4 and that now feels a lot better. First time i've ever adjusted the nut height and it could come down a little bit more.

 

No worst purchases this year.

 

Excuse the stage mess. It was a sound check and cleared for the show..............honest.