molan

Looks like good prices in certain strings but not on others I checked my favourite sets and they were 25% more expensive than UK local pricing

£1,100 to a list price of £1,650 isn't going to be desperately profitable. Let's say the buyer haggles to get around 10% off and settles on £1,500. That's an initial profit of £400. VAT wipes out £80. Credit card or PayPal fees could easily be another £50 (there are operating fees over and above the base commission). Now we're down to £270 profit. May well have needed new strings, a professional clean and a set up to go with the strings. Including some time for labour that's another £50 gone. Net profit now sitting at £220 without allowing any costs for time involved in photography and by a sales person in store looking after the customer. Overall margin is just under 15% on the £1,500 sale price or a 20% mark up on the cost of purchase (all assumptions based on it coming in at £1,100). In the long term that's barely break even for any sort of specialist retail business that doesn't have high volume of sales to offset against basic staff salaries, rates, rent, power, accountancy fees, phones, broadband etc etc. Oh, and if there is any profit left after all of these have been paid then good old corporation tax can hit you for another 20% or so on the end of year net profits. Of course - there's a lot of hypotheses involved here in terms of initial cost of goods coming in and any haggling on the final sales price but you can begin to see that selling pre-owned gear in a specialist retailer isn't desperately profitable a lot of the time

All you need now is a Grace FeLix to complete the set

Sometimes. Quite like Fodera strings and the very light gauge (used to be the Wooten sigs) work really well on 4 string Monarchs. Ritter swordsteels also work well on Jens' basses. He has some interesting gauges as standard fit items. Oh, how could I forget Status. I love 30-90 Hotwires on my Streamline!

I had an immaculate '67 B15 for a couple of years. Sounded lovely but not really useable for anything other than home practice or recording. It now resides in a studio where it belongs I did get to try one of the new, top of range, models once but only for about 5 minutes before I got hustled off by Darryl Jones, lol. It was a thing of great beauty but I couldn't really tell how different it sounded from my original.

I've owned three (I think). Always loved them but just too heavy for me. Sound great with a DB410 - but I can't lift those either any more!

Plenty of speakon to jack connectors out there these days. Some speakon amp sockets will accept jack cables as well but I can't remember exactly which ones off the top of my head

[quote name='Chienmortbb' timestamp='1471904100' post='3116931'] I have been offered it for £80. Couldvprobsmly get it for £70. [/quote] Sounds about right, Last one I saw was £75. Just make sure you give it a really good check over to be sure everything is working first.

They've been around for ages. Nice little amps but don't go very loud, nothing like some of the 'modern' small combos. Not giggable on its own unless you're in a small jazz type band. Can work well with double bass but still relatively low volume. They often pop up very cheaply on the used market but be sure to check them over first as some of them have a habit of blowing the power amp section if pushed hard.

I've seen him in a 'backing band' for Bootsy and he was a complete funk God He's also a genuinely nice bloke, once asked me very politely if he could have a go on one of my basses, lol.

Guitarist in my band did something similar with his Epiphone Les Paul. It was a very pretty flame top model but never quite had the tone of a really classy LP. We got our luthier to fit some Fat Boy pickups, all the pots, caps & switches etc were replaced with 'proper' high quality ones and it totally transformed it. Sounds amazing now and better than many Gibsons I've heard I love it when this sort of stuff comes together!

[quote name='sifi2112' timestamp='1471802014' post='3116004'] Cheers Molan .... the AC combo is top of my list, so do I wait for a 2nd hand one or bite the bullet & order new lol [/quote] There are some deals on these if you hunt around enough. Prices rose a while ago after the £ first started dipping but some people snapped a few up before the price rises went through

Personally I find the TC heads complete tone suckers. The RH450 in particular is possibly the worst amp I've ever had the misfortune to use live. The 750 is an improvement but there are so many better made and, more importantly, more reliable heads out there.

The Alain Caron is a beast! Full 500w into the 1x12 and another 300w just for the horn It goes very loud without any need for an extension cab. Plenty of clarity from the horn but you can use the filters to warm things up if that's what's needed for certain songs or gigs. I'd take one ahead of the Jeff Berlin every time!

I had one of those gold ones for a while. It was truly horrible. . .

GK MB200 is just a killer little amp. I currently have a string of amps sitting at home but the little MB200 goes with me to every gig. It's tiny, sounds great, definitely feels much louder than the 200w it's supposed to have and has enough features to cover a lot of gigs. It's not my main gigging amp but it always comes along for the ride just in case my main amp goes down.

I got a very dodgy body from them once with a nasty ding in it. Took ages, and a lot of stroppy messages, to get compensation

One new G string when first fitting and tuning it.

[quote name='Sibob' timestamp='1471532275' post='3113754'] How did they differ? Just in setup? Si [/quote]. They feel like completely different basses. US models are very well made, lovely necks, perfect fretting and I've not heard one that didn't Sound really nice. Far eastern ones have that classic 'mass produced' feel to them. Fine instruments in the main but lacking that touch of class the US ones have.

I've owned a few big heavy amps, especially loved my early SVTII non-pro but simply too much to carry. I'm now using a Jule Monique Dove Cage - gives me as close as I can get to a classic valve tone but, by pairing with a lighter weight power amp, it's easily transportable Of course, part of the joy of the classic valve head was the hefty power stage so that's missing but the Jule really is something else and makes me smile every time I turn it on!

It's a fair bit more expensive shipping from Canada than USA. I've bought both personal and company basses in from a few different places there and it's always a higher price that any US shipping. At the shop we always had to buy instruments in pairs to amortise costs.

Is that what you chose to keep in the end Karl? I lose track of your gear at times