Kev

Gear4Music game me £150 off a £800 bass for undisclosed damage and wear on arrival, which I thought was fair. Seems pockets are getting tighter.

Really surprised and disappointed in Andertons. First it seems they tried to sell it you without offering pictures or any discount. You then got offered just over 5% off for a bass in a worse condition than most looked after used basses?? And on top of that they are in excess of 10% to buy in the first place, compared to elsewhere? Also note it’s still listed as 1 in stock on the website, full price and not B stock. They’re just hoping someone will not ask for a discount or refund, once they have your money. Sharp practice, not good at all 😕

Ah sorry, perhaps I wasn't clear enough looking back. I've had a brace of Limited Edition One10's (the sour taste), a Super Compact and a Midget. I loved my Super Compact and had no issues with it apart from it being flat tonally, if there was an 8x10 or 4x12 in that series I would be more interested in a comparison, but I'm not sure the coloured more cost effective build of the retro series is equal to the Darkglass in terms of finish, and potentially build quality and woods used; presuming the speakers weigh very similar both being Neo, there may be a comparison of robustness to be made. SUPER lightweight in that regard is not always king, especially in cab of this volume. I haven't tried any of the new Neo range to be honest. The Ceramic cabs sounded good but nothing groundbreaking.

I was referring to build as I said, sound wise I haven't heard the Darkglass so have no idea! Assuming you have, what's your take on it?

I lost a lot of money on selling my retro (if they’re still called that?) range cabs because of tweed tolex shrinkage, repair of which I was fobbed off my Barefaced for around 2 years. Even after acknowledging the issue, they continued to sell cabs with the same glue and tolex, a recent post on Facebook by Alex admitted this. Leaves a sour taste, and unless I’m mistaken their 810 has the same tolex and construction as the one10s. I can’t see Darkglass letting anything with that kind of QC issue hit the market.

Yeah, they need to drop the ultra lightweight tag as it look a bit silly if there are cabs out there that weigh 10kg less. Still, they''re not heavy and if your buying an 8x10 or 4x12 I'm not sure how much difference you would notice. Still isn't a one hand lift and stairs are still going to be a problem! After my experience of the Barefaced cab range I don't see them as a fair comparison quality wise, the Darkglass builds will be top notch. It seems like a niche market though, i just don't know who uses cabs that size any more over a modular setup, and even if the ones that do may be set in their way with their SVTs.

Worry that Ibanez have swung and missed with this series, seems to be a lot of very different QC issues being identified. Understandable on a £400 Ibby, not on anything north of £1k. The problem when budget basses suddenly get expensive.

Looks like Dan has jumped back on the Cog train, just bought my custom! Pleasure to deal with, and patient despite almost a week delay with the courier! (Also, just merged 4 different feedback threads you had running ;))

May be a bit of a basic question, but I often change tunings on my basses and as such have a number of sets of strings on the go at any one time. When I take them off, I tend to carefully coil and keep inside a sealed plastic packaging. But I’m questioning why I bother risking coiling them etc in cases I kink by accident. If, say, I hung strings up uncoiled in a cupboard or similar, will the string degenerate? Assuming the cupboard isn’t damp or anything? I’ve always had it in my head that they need protecting, but given that they don’t experience the main causes of strings going dead (pressure, gunk, moisture) I’m now unsure if they’ll degrade at all??

I'm not sure that is the vibe in this thread, or certainly not from my perspective. DV247 in my experience don't need a pandemic to be awful. Another thing they do that I'm not sure I've seen anyone say is they, at least on occasion, list products in stock that are not in stock at all. Happened at least twice to me, always irks me as they are just taking advantage of people who cannot be bothered going through the cancellation procedure and will just wait. In fact, such are their delivery times I have previously thought that they don't in fact stock much at all and order in as its ordered from them, which explains why sometimes they need to cough when they can't get something from their supplier in short notice.

Phone speakers, but it seems to be a little like a supermarket imperial stout.

Well that’s something if they don’t add a surcharge or anything. Certainly something that needs to be highlighted, as it will save a customer thousands...

I wouldn't say that was a fair comparison, as they are not built in the same way by the same people. Totally up to the company what they charge as a base cost for an instrument, its upgrades of the same instrument that is much harder to justify.

Lets put something into context here, based on my own experience of custom ordering a bass. They charge $1,500 to upgrade to a Walnut topwood, so maybe a 10mm thick piece of wood. Possible not even 1 piece as it doesn't say, could easily be bookmatched. When I commissioned my first Alpher instruments bass, Chris directed me to the wood merchants website where I could choose the wood I wanted for my bass. I chose a large slab of extremely highly figured claro walnut, what would be considered AAAAA or similar in terms of figuring. The slab was large enough to make two full size one piece bodies out of (not tops). The cost of this slab was $350, so $175 worth for my bass. I think Chris charged me $400 or so for the upgrade. If this was just topwood size/thickness, you're maybe looking at around $100 for a piece of high quality walnut. Alembic are charging $1,500, which may be as much as 15 times what they could buy it for. That is simply showing contempt for your customers. Charge what you like as a base cost for your instrument, only you can decide that, but charging upgrade costs like this that have minimal impact on the manufacturing process of the bass is just horrendous.

Does the same apply if I send my own topwoods?

AND YOU DON'T GET A CASE OR GIG BAG They start at £450... http://www.alembic.com/prod/prices.html Some items in this list are truly astonishing. Buckeye burl is £2,000 extra, and that just a top. Looks like they charge £2,000 or so for a preamp. Do you want it to come with strings? An extra £69-£105 if you do.

.... That's just ridiculous. And i thought Fodera were expensive, I had no idea that Alembic went that high. That's just completely bonkers.

£3,500 in 1984?! Jesus that’s an awful lot of money.

Yeah Nords are a hard sell to me, they’re so brittle at the top end. Those barts are too dark though for me, the US Classic Bass versions have much better top end. I made that upgrade on an SRMS805 and it was night and day.

Fair play! Out of interest, what about a strap do you expect may fail?! The incident I mentioned was a result of it being heavily worn, but I would have retired a strap long before it got to that stage. Leads, absolutely. I play wireless and still have two backup instrument leads.

That's interesting, as I don't think the kind of sound guys on our circuit would even remotely get involved with that, hard enough to get them to deal with issues with their own equipment! Bands asking to borrow gear on the night is a HUGE pet peeve of mine. Before now I've had a headlining band ask to borrow my backline an hour before their set, which is just ridiculous. Absolutely no issue asking in advance within reason but turning up on the night unprepared is just unprofessional, and that goes for reasonable backups too. Once a guys bloody strap of all things snapped mid set and ran backstage and gave him mine, as I would have thought spare straps would be a step too far for most! Again, it comes down to how serious you take it. I would hate the idea of finishing a gig with anything by my own instrument, as I am particular about my setups, but yeah, each to their own i guess!