MartinB

The price of those adapters was already something of a joke. I use strips of veneer to reduce the hole size, same as @neepheid and Gerry Hayes. These are worth considering as a Hipshot alternative:

How about some radioactive side dots? https://www.reidtimber.co.uk/edc/luminous-tritium-side-dot-markers

Another vote for TC Electronic Spark Booster - the budget king of this sort of thing

Covers on a Precision look cool, and I never found that they got in the way - I just don't currently have a suitable bass to put them on. I can imagine the Jazz ones could be annoying due to the much larger footprint of the bridge cover though.

In the bits box, screws attached with masking tape

Out of curiosity, I picked up a very cheap second-hand mini electric: Which is one of these, minus the amp and accessories: https://www.smythstoys.com/uk/en-gb/toys/arts-crafts-and-music/musical-instruments-and-karaoke/musical-instruments/80cm-electric-guitar-with-amp/p/110724. 19 3/4" scale, which makes it somewhere around 80% sized. The bridge was not only off-centre, but also too way close to the neck - hopelessly out of tune with itself, and impossible to intonate. I feel sorry for any child that owned this before me, and for anyone who had to listen to them attempting to get a tune out of it! So I moved the bridge position to the correct spot, and also shortened some of the intonation screws so that the saddles could be moved back far enough without the screws blocking the path of the strings. Put some 11-49 strings on to compensate for the short scale, and it tunes up and plays okay. It needs to be fretted with a light touch due to the low string tension; it's possible these things were intended to be tuned higher than E standard, although there's no mention of that on the product page. The nut is definitely a bit tall, but it's not glued in so that should be easy enough to fix when I get round to it. The neck was unfinished and fairly rough, so that got a good sanding. The frets needed polishing, and although there were no protruding sharp ends, they were a bit blocky and needed a rub down. Paintwork is fine. Tuners are slightly stiff but perfectly functional. The volume pot works. I fully expected the bridge to have no ground wire, but I was wrong. No shielding paint inside. The pickup was probably ok, but I swapped it for a cheap rail humbucker to head off any noise. I've played plenty of cheap Squiers and the like, and they've all been great - this thing is in another category altogether. The fact that there's a cut-out for the bridge in the scratchplate that is even further away from where it's supposed to be tells you something about the attention to detail. But attempting to rescue it was a fun, low-stakes project - and my nephew had a blast bashing away at it through a cranked amp! 😁 I wouldn't recommend buying one of these unless you can find one dirt cheap and you're prepared to work to make it playable.

Heh, the Talbot! We used to go there as teenagers because they weren't too fussy about asking for ID 😁 I've made a small donation to Dorothy House in exchange for this unexpected trip down memory lane!

Spirit of Vintage now £44 (+ £10 postage) at Thomann

It it feels good, looks good, and makes you feel cool, then the Ibanez is the right bass for you 👍

Take your own bass to the shop and try it through the same Fender amp. If it still sounds bad, then you'll know that a new amp is not the solution.

There's no tube in the original Digbeth models - the second channel has tube-style drive but is solid state. This isn't a criticism though - they sound really good!

You could probably get someone to 3D-print you something similar for a lot less e.g. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4876428 https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4184813

It's a bit of a mystery! It came from ebay seller musicinternational and was listed as "4 String Electric J Bass or P Bass Bridge for Jazz/Precision Bass Guitar", but I haven't seen another one like it since.

Rays and skates can be hard to tell apart. Mine's not a StingRay - it's a CheapSkate! 😁 Squier Sonic Precision Warman MM4 pickup Retrovibe Stinger pre-amp Custom scratchplate by earlpilanz (because I hacked out the pickup cavity by hand and it's not pretty 🙈)

Nice! That's like AliExpress prices but presumably with much better QC. The edges of that fretboard look seriously rolled!