tobiewharton

EBS Reidmar are the first amps that spring to my mind.

My votes would go to Yamaha, Cort and Ibanez for quality and consistency. S/H their more basic models will be not too far beyond budget. I've no personal experience of Hartley Benton instruments but notice that they often review well. Set-up and reasonable quality strings can elevate a cheaper bass enormously but, unless you do it yourself you'll be adding a significant bill to your budget (£50-£80 including strings). This is lost money. Therfore, imo you'd be better off getting a S/H instrument that doesn't necessarily need a set-up and strings and would retain the majority of its value (try first if at all possible); if I had to hedge my bets I'd go for Yamaha, having never owned or played a bad one. All the best to your daughter as she embarks on this exciting but dangerous quest!

The Boss can be a little noisy but is very capable and imo unbeatable in its (new) price range. Spectracomp is incredible value but a different beast in terms of having to became au fait with the TC ecosystem in order to get the most out of it. I'm not a pedal deep dive guy and have personally found the Keeley Bassist to be the most intuitive, really effective and nearly noise-free compressor; I always found the MXR more finicky, though it's very popular for good reasons. Both of the latter options can be had s/h for around your budget although admittedly the Keeley is harder to find. All the best in the search!

That's a sexy looking instrument!

The Dimension I tried was ace! Yolanda Charles made hers sing too.

To my mind, the F-Trap just seems to be becoming more and more conspicuous by the year. I get it - some players want to feel a part of the brand and its incredible legacy, some want to own and trade collector's pieces and some just don't know what else is out there because their local shop has such a poor range of stock. In my experience, Fenders are sometimes excellent, often fine and sometimes terrible; I don't think they're consistent enough and I'd certainly not buy one sight unseen. But the prices are astonishing, all for fewer options and often sketchier QC than the multitude of available equivalents. The company seems to actively avoid innovation and puts very little effort into marketing new products and yet the trap still works, possibly better than ever. The power of strong branding, eh...

Yours looks much better!

Jeez.