Dan Dare

Speak to Watford Valves. They'll put you right.

I know one doesn't like to appear mean, but lending gear is a no-no for me. If I'm there and someone wants to play through my kit, I'll say yes if they ask nicely (and preferably buy me a pint), but that's it. I never let anything out of my sight. Too much of my hard earned at stake and people aren't always careful with others' stuff.

Looks like a bitsa that someone has put together. if it plays/sounds OK, probably a decent buy.

If you use the hoover, once the cone has resumed its shape, don't pull the tube from it without switching off the hoover first. That's the most likely way to damage it.

If you chuck it through the window of !0 Downing Street or Buck House, it probably will, for a short time at any rate...

An important reason for me for avoiding 4x12 or 4x10 cabs has always been portability. Their width makes them a pain to get through doors, into the car, etc and of course, they are usually heavy. The fact that 2x10s or 2x12s work better is a bonus.

Things such as appalling set-up, rusty strings, etc, etc can be handy devices for haggling the price down. It does depend on your viewing/trying the instrument before purchase, of course.

So how does it work? Suppose I contact Sid Scammer and say "I'll have your Fodera for a quid"? Does he say he's had a better offer and invite me to top it?

I'll pay two quid for it 😁

I once saw an interview with Billy Sheehan, in which he showed what he uses. It was a tough webbing strap, screwed to the bass and with a couple of large metal washers between the screw heads and the strap. Bombproof. You can't take the strap off the instrument unless you unscrew it, but the webbing folds, so it goes in the case with no bother. Worth a try?

Did someone mention Hiscox? Good value, sturdy, well made. Do you need anything more?

Dead right. I hope she dumped the pompous plonker. All this "I never learned enough about music theory to hurt my playing" does smack of defensiveness, imho. It's simply a tool that can help in a lot of ways. It won't rule your life, force you to play in different ways or "stifle your creativity", etc, etc. It's just handy to have. If you know how/why something works, it makes it easier to do it when you want, rather than hope to stumble on it by accident. That's all.

I know this thread is good fun, but do people really hide new purchases from or justify them to their partners? When mine was alive, if I wanted to buy an instrument or piece of equipment, I did. It was my money and provided the household budget didn't suffer, that was the end of it. I wouldn't have dreamt of objecting to her buying anything, of course.

If you cramp up, it's nearly always a sign you are using too much force/over-straining, unless you have injuries/physical issues. I'd look at your technique and set-up. Are you self-taught? Many who are learn bad habits, which can come back to bite them, especially once they are past the first flush of youth and the body loses some ability to withstand misuse.

At the sort of money you're looking to spend, I would think about going old school, provided you don't mind the weight. You'll get far more bang for your buck that way. The afore-mentioned Hartke, or something like an Ashdown ABM or similar will serve you well.

PA speakers at similar price points tend to be pretty comparable. I wouldn't worry.

I've often wondered about this – eBay listings with ludicrous prices - so have looked it up. Apparently, the reason is that eBay offers no option for sellers to list items as being temporarily out of stock. They can only end or take down the listing, which means the message stating “100 sold - over 10 remaining”, which is encouraging to buyers, will be lost for good. If they take orders on an out of stock item, they risk being unable to fulfil orders if delivery is delayed/their supplier is out of stock, etc. That may cause them to fall foul of distance selling Reg’s and eBay’s rules and harm their feedback ratings. As a result, a lot of sellers hedge their bets by putting the price up to something ludicrous whilst they wait to see if they can get more stock. Doing this for a short time also helps keep their place in Best Match (so their item will be somewhere near the top of the list when people search) and retains the sold history. Doing it for longer is counter-productive, however, because every visit to the listing that doesn't result in a sale reduces the Best Match weighting. Interesting, eh?

Yep. Love it. I'm 65 and still haven't found anything to equal it. Yes, I know there are duff gigs, lousy journeys, etc, etc, but a good 'un easily outweighs all that.

I prefer a tug bar if I use anything at all. I like to dig in when the occasion demands it.

That's what I did for 40 years. I had periods of playing full time, but for much of the time, I held down a day job (full or part time). I'm retired now. Yes, it was often tiring and yes, I had (as do we all) to put up with some nonsense, but you take the rough with the smooth and get on with it. The good stuff outweighs the bad and that's all we can hope for in life.

That's not a fretless. It's a worthless 😁

God loves a trier...

Well done to Ashdown. Another suggestion re Speakon plugs. Make sure, if you are assembling leads yourself, that you do not allow any stray cable filaments to short to the wrong terminal. It can happen, when you insert the stripped ends of the cables into the terminal recesses in the plug, that a single filament of copper will pass the wrong side of the plastic separator and cause a short. The terminals are close together and the space you have to work in on the plug is quite small, especially with the two pole ones. As others suggest, make sure you use the real McCoy. Some of the copies do not mate well. I found this when I tried to use a speaker cable someone gave me which had no-name copies on it. It did not fit smoothly into a real Speakon socket or make good contact. Buy nice or buy twice, as the saying goes.

Not so. Use heavy (at least 2.5mm cross section per conductor) cables and you'll be fine. I sometimes use 25 metre cables with my PA speakers (4mm cross section) and they're absolutely fine. Of course, if you use doorbell wire, you may have an issue.