[quote name='alexclaber' post='530357' date='Jul 2 2009, 10:38 AM']And once you get into the sub £200 bass bracket for any review to be worthwhile you need to review about five examples, and not those carefully selected by the distributor - at the cheapest end the quality control is so random that one example could be fantastic and one could be utterly toneless. Wood is not a consistent material and tone is very much dependant on it.
Alex[/quote]
As you've said, getting a very carefully prepared and selected 'demo' model for a shoot-out from a distributor does no one any favours except the distributor. I suppose it might show the potential of the bass [u]if[/u] you get a good one and have it set up properly.
I don't know what budget BGM work on, but if they spent £1k on 5 budget basses from various retail outlets, did a shoot-out with them, then did a prize draw for the winner and knock out the 4 'loosers' on fleabay for £125 each, then they're only £500 down on the exercise (unless they make this up on the prize draw entries?)