Dan Dare

All it needs is the name scribbled on the headstock with a Sharpie... The instrument looks as if somebody's stuck a bass neck on a frisbee.

True. Virtually all cabs have parallel inputs/outputs, so easy to run more than one if you want.

700w into 2.67 ohms? I'd bet they're using the ICEpower module that so many others do, with their own preamp. Blackstar make nice pre's - they've had plenty of practice building guitar amps - so it should work fine.

I was referring to amps and cabs, not instruments, as that's what this discussion is about. I agree that budget instruments can work very well. I have a couple. They needed to be fettled/tweaked to get the best out of them, but I do my own set-up, so can afford to take the time to do it. Like you, I don't think there's any substitute for spending proper money on amps and cabs, and particularly cabs. You can save money on amplification, especially if you buy used and don't mind carrying a bit of weight, but you need plenty of grunt. Phil Jones commented once that bass is the instrument from hell to amplify. I think he's correct (fwiw, I use PJB cabs, but I run a number of them - four or five of his 4x5s and enough amplification to drive them properly) I particularly agree with Alex's observation that the trend towards smaller, lighter rigs has exacerbated problems for bass players. A bass places stiff demands on gear. We need to shift air, do so cleanly and have enough power at our disposal to ensure its working well within its capabilities. Otherwise, it will struggle when pushed, like that little city runabout does when you drive it hard on the motorway.

Must have shrunk in the wash, too

Very true. I borrowed a rig from a friend whilst mine was in for repairs. I didn't care for the sound when I tried it in isolation - sounded too mid-heavy and spiky for my taste. It was a name-brand/not cheap and I wondered what the fuss was about. Then I tried it in a band context and it worked wonderfully. It's universally true that there's no substitute for spending enough money (wisely, of course) on the right tools. It may not be the best analogy, but that little 1 litre city runabout may be handy for pootling round town, but it will struggle (and so will the driver) if used to drive hundreds of miles on the motorway at high speed. There's a reason the stuff that works is expensive.

Must be hot in the factory where they're made. They're melting.

Signs of abuse...

Grinding disc?

I use a mixer because I can run music into it to play/practice along with. I also use one because I have several, so it's cheaper to use what I already have, rather than buying a Zoom, amp sim, etc. I have pretty extensive sound shaping, courtesy of 4 band all parametric eq (which enables me to remove much of the bass part on tracks) and onboard fx, so rig sim not really necessary in my case.

If you have a day out at the Gallery, treat yourself to lunch at Castle's Pie & Mash, just up Royal College Street from them. The oldest remaining P&M shop in London. I go there once a week and it's ace.

Whereabouts are you? As you mention Dorset, I'm assuming the South West. Don't know what's available in your area, I'm afraid. Barefaced are in some shops. If you're heading for London, I wouldn't go to Tottenham Court Road. It's not what it was. The Gallery in Camden carries BF and all the other brands you list. Anderton's in Guildford carry most of them, as do Bass Direct in Warwick.

Where in the signal path you add gain is important to the sound. A guitarist will often add gain early in the chain, to drive the input stage hard, cause it to break up and add some grit to the sound. That's not a good idea on a PA mixer (or a bass amp unless you are aiming for a dirtier sound). On a PA mixer, a good rule of thumb is to set vocal levels on headphones and aim to have them max at 0db, perhaps 3db on peaks. Then increase the master fader to achieve the desired level in the room.

With the sort of money you intend to spend, you really ought to head for a well stocked shop and try the alternatives. Your "Wow" may well be someone else's "Umm" - we all have different tastes and expectations. I wouldn't buy anything untested or untried. I would also respectfully suggest that your head, which retails for around the £200 mark, may not do justice to the better cabs you list from companies such as Barefaced, Darkglass, Bergantino, Vanderkley, Eich et al. It claims an output of 500w, but that's into 4 ohms and TC is known for, er, optimistic quoted power outputs. They will work with it, but it won't be optimal. If you intend to upgrade it at some point, then consider a high end cab. If not, the money may be better spent on improving the head first. A speaker, as the final link in the chain, can only pass on what it receives. Either way, I wouldn't buy on the basis of recommendation alone. That carries a high risk of disappointment and endless upgrading (we've all been there). Possible to take a day off work and go shopping? If you visit a shop during the early part of week, you can take your time and the staff will be able to give you personal attention and advise you, which may not be the case at the weekend when they're busiest. Make a day out of it, try out some new toys, have a nice lunch and spend, spend, spend.

Fair enough. I don't disbelieve you. I certainly don't have the knowledge of loudspeaker design that you do, but I do understand how manufacturing operates. I am sure that you did your research thoroughly and put considerable effort into developing your drive units. However, my point was that the OEM driver manufacturers we referred to earlier (one of which makes your units) have R&D departments and are constantly striving to improve their own product in order to remain competitive. They will be aware of and will constantly examine competitors' product to see whether they can use or adapt any of their ideas to improve what they do. When company A makes an improvement to its product that gives it a competitive edge, companies B, C et al will act swiftly to develop their own equivalent. Unless something is genuinely revolutionary and protected by iron clad patents (even then, it can be difficult and often prohibitively expensive to pursue a case of plagiarism or patent infringement unless it is particularly blatant), there is nothing to prevent companies B, C et al from reverse engineering something similar. They may even improve on the original development. For example, Honda released the first mass market hybrid car - the Insight - but Toyota improved on it and enjoyed much greater success with the Prius, which they launched a couple of years subsequently. Whilst Toyota may not have directly copied Honda, they would certainly have examined their efforts thoroughly and used what they learned to improve/develop their own product. Everyone learns from and is inspired by others - "standing on the shoulders of giants" and all that. When I first saw the rotating exploded diagram of one of your cabs that used to feature on your website, I immediately thought "B&W Nautilus". It reminded me of the cutaway Nautilus 801 cabinet - which employed an interlocking honeycomb construction of internal bracing to produce a rigid, acoustically inert cab that controlled internal reflections - that used to be on display in the hi-fi shop in North London that I use. This was before the days when B&W used moulded composite materials for their high end cabs and built with ply, mdf, etc. I know you won't have directly copied a B&W design in developing your own cabs, but I'm sure you would have been aware of their work (their HQ is in sunny Worthing, just along the south coast from you) and adapted it for your own purposes. That's a good thing. Using/building on a successful concept is an intelligent thing to do. It's the reason humanity isn't still living in burrows and hitting things with clubs. I am not criticising your company or products (lest anyone claims I am). I have used your cabs, happily acknowledge how good they are and believe you deserve your success. However, there is rarely anything truly new under the sun.

Rumble a safe choice. Probably a bit more versatile than the Orange. A separate amp and cab can be useful in that it's more expandable - you can add an extra cab if you need more. The Rumble has the facility to drive an additional cab, though, so that's another point in its favour.

Get a bicycle inner tube and cut it into 1" to 2" lengths. Loads of protectors for a few quid. Just find one of the right width to fit your thumb.

I'd get a little mixer - plenty around for not much used - and use that for headphone practice. Because I run a PA, I use my monitor mixer, but any small mixer will do the job. You can run music into it via the CD/MP3 input and play along with that. Any pedals can be run via the FX loop or a spare channel.

Those very low wattage amps are novelty items - imho of course. If he takes to the instrument, he'll need to replace it with something suitable for gigs (or just rehearsals at reasonable volumes). If he doesn't take to it, it will be wasted money. in either event, he'll have to move it on and re-sale value on those little amps is pretty well zilch. Better to put the £80 odd towards a reasonable used head that will do for gigs and/or can be sold on easily if necessary

If you like the instrument otherwise, I would take it to a repair/set-up person and ask them to adjust the nut, either by re-positioning or replacing it. It's a simple enough and relatively inexpensive job. Ask them if they advise a string tree at the same time and get one fitted if they do. By the time you've messed around trying to return it, paid for shipping, etc, and chosen/bought another instrument, you will be no worse and maybe even better off.

£200 plus for a used Squier Bronco? Hilarious.

Yep. Do you think the world is trying to tell the seller something?

Treating cones oneself is tricky. Ideally, they need to be as light and rigid as possible, so they move quickly and precisely and translate whatever signal the motor receives into movement of the air. Cone shapes and profiles are important in this regard. Paper cones are often doped or treated to increase their stiffness, but you have to be careful not to add too much weight. Many companies have experimented with sandwich/composite materials and plastics, which offer greater rigidity, but can carry a penalty of increased weight, which can make them inefficient and mean they need a beefier motor and consequently more power to drive them. It's a bit of a balancing act.

The possible variation in drive unit makers' product ranges may well be "massive". However, once you eliminate products that are unsuitable, for whatever reason, the number left won't be great. We're talking about higher end bass cab manufacturers here. They will select from the small number of suitable, proven units offered by the "pretty short list of OEM driver manufacturers". They'd be daft not to. It would be commercially risky to go too far out on a limb or use something untried or that that may not be up to the job. It's difficult to build a good reputation and very easy to lose it. Custom/special order units? How will they differ greatly from standard offerings, given that a drive unit has relatively few key components - basket/frame, cone, coil/motor, magnet and terminals - and the best materials to use to make those components are well known and established? Drive unit manufacturers are not going to deliberately offer top-line products that are not as good as they can make them (they have reputations to protect, too). Once again, we are discussing flagship drivers - Kappalites, Faital Pros, etc - used by companies such as Vanderkley, Bergantino, you and others catering for the high end of the market. So we can discount those that employ cost-cut materials and other factors that render them unfit (or less fit) for purpose. I appreciate that you have a living to make, but I find it difficult to believe that there is "literally nothing on the market" like the drivers you use. I'm sure they are of excellent quality and as good as you have found it possible to source, but "unique"?

Me too. I'm pretty happy with what I have. Being ancient, I've worked up to the point where I've got the stuff I like. I guess if money was no object, I'd look for a really nice vintage P bass, but that would be about it.