Dan Dare

The JB police are on their way to re-educate you... 😁

It's also that we're all getting too old, or are too poor to hire someone to cart heavy stuff around.

All you say is true, particularly the final sentence. Short of persuading the drummist to use an electronic kit, one still needs to make enough noise onstage to compete with him/her.

No Thanks to Jazz basses? My dear sir, have you taken leave of your senses?

Exactly. You can also place your monitors on top of the subs, which gets them closer to ear level and makes them easier to hear.

Not such a wild or crazy idea. I use a compact sub (this one - https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/fohhn-xs22) that has onboard DSP and power amps that drive it and a pair of small (1x10 + horn) top boxes. Sits front and centre and takes up little space. Makes for a lightweight, powerful PA that can be carried in two trips from the car.

That sounds the best compromise. Your guitarist can still use his Headrush, but the guitar will be loud enough to sit with the onstage levels of the drums and your backline.

New price is around 4,300, so probably about right.

Very well put. The awful irony of MDP's "creations" is that, were he simply to give instruments a good clean and fit a new set of strings, he would be able to sell them far more easily and avoid all the ridicule (I assume he is picking them up cheap). More evidence of his insanity, I guess...

Seems to me that the issue will be that, as you don't have subs, there won't (unless you have very capable top boxes in your PA) be anything to give weight to the low end out front. I guess you could use your Bergs for the purpose and have a single BF as a personal monitor, but that would necessitate taking almost all your kit to gigs and achieving balance between the Bergs and the PA might not be easy. Does the band have a spare power amp (you would need a crossover, too), so you could employ the Bergs as straightforward subs, or would you rather they were not used in that way? There would also be the problem of the limited space for the band in the average pub to contend with. The simplest way I can see would be for the guitarist to use a backline and do it the old fashioned way.

Oh dear. I realise that. I think you miss my point.

There's a simple answer to all this. Don't buy an item if you don't like the seller's terms or don't want to collect it. Too many entitled people about, expecting everything to be delivered to their door.

The seller is not a player, despite the "I am a semi-professional guitarist" claim. No player would describe it as "Crafted in Japan". Probably looked up Jags on t'internet and doubled the first number he found.

Close. Diplomat.

Used has to be the way to go. If you don't mind the weight, there are some very decent old school class A/B power amps being sold cheap on places like eBay. I wouldn't touch a £100 new power amp with a 10 foot sterilised bargepole. £100 retail means wholesale price is £50, which means price at the factory gate is around £20. It's going to be junk.

There is a solution to that. I find it worth being a member because I get back more than my sub's in reduced insurance costs.

A lot of people don't realise we have to physically play instruments and sing to create music. They think what we do is the same as someone shoving a CD in a slot or picking a number from a playlist on a laptop. They really are that unaware.

Agree with la bam. Hard to beat a nice used Ashdown for bang for your buck. Reliable and solidly made, too, so should stay the course.

Talk you out of buying a BB2? OK. DON'T BUY THE BLOODY THING!

A bike? You were lucky. We had one wheel each off a roller skate we found and travelled 50 miles to work on it every day. Kids these days don't know they're born, etc, etc.

That's a beaut'. I'm nicking it. I like to ask them which accident they are calling about, as I'm old, my eyesight is failing and I'm always driving into people. Gets rid of them in double quick time. Had a slightly odd one the other day. Usual tripe - "This is Peter (spoken in a heavy Indian accent). I am calling from BT about your internet connection. It is being used for illegal purposes. Ve are going to help you solve the problem. OK?" We went through the usual - my telling him he didn't work for BT, that he was calling from a boiler room in Mumbai, that he was a scamming little toad and would he mind p1ssing off, etc - at which point he, obviously wishing to appear cool, Western and hip, started dribbling on about how he was "smoking a joint" and other nefarious nonsense. When I laughed, he hung up. Sad little git.

Shops and Amazon are not private individuals. If you, as a private individual, don't want to ship something you are selling, you are quite within your rights. No ifs or buts. All the listings I have seen in which sellers offer to pack an item for the buyer to arrange collection of are those which specify collection only. You are not compelled to buy something from them.