Dan Dare

With the combination of instruments you play, I'd agree that quality powered PA speakers and mixer or preamp are probably the way to go.

It's a tranny amp. See xgsjx's post above. Fixing it will cost more than it's worth. Save your money and put it towards something newer/better.

If you only want it for headphone use, a small decent quality mixer will do the trick. I use one at home, fed by a good DI box and it works well. You can feed whatever you want to practice/play along with into the mixer and adjust relative volume levels, even reduce low frequencies in the track if the eq is good enough, which is handy if you don't want to hear too much of the original bass part. Getting get that studio/flat/clean tone out of an amp and speakers at any volume is another matter and it won't be cheap. You need large monitor type speakers and powerful amplification, all working well within their capabilities to do that.

Fwiw, I have the Rega, too and am happy with it.

Got any nice instruments you're willing to let me have for well under market price? 😁 P.S. I promise not to flip them...

In that case, slojo's correct and the preamp is built into your turntable. You will need to connect the phono out (which is the non-boosted signal) on the turntable to a phono preamp and from there into your amp. Take the turntable to the shop so you can compare them.

Ah. Didn't think of that. I wonder if it can be by-passed if that's the case.

A pleasure. Try to take your amp along to compare the inbuilt pre' with whatever the shop suggests. You may find there isn't a great improvement unless you spend a bit. Denon stuff is pretty decent for the money.

That's been a standard budget recommendation for some years. See my previous post about levels, though.

Cables can be the hi-fi world's equivalent to tone woods in solid electric instruments. You can pay a fortune for them and although it can be argued they can improve sound quality, you won't get a higher signal level by swapping them out. As a cartridge produces such a tiny signal, it needs to be boosted by a phono preamp (which is what you have in your amplifier). The preamp also corrects the frequency balance - low frequencies are minimised when cutting records in order to reduce the amount the record grooves modulate. If they weren't, the stylus wouldn't be able to track them (look up RIAA equalisation for an explanation). You may be able to get a phono preamp that produces higher output than the one built into your amp (you would have to run it into a line, not the phono input). Not sure about that - you'll need to do some research - but you may have to accept that vinyl is not going to produce as high an output as streaming, CDs or DAB. Stand alone phono pre's can be pretty expensive. Have a look online for reviews and recommendations in places such as - Best phono preamps 2021: budget to high-end | What Hi-Fi? and ask a few decent shops for advice (keeping your b/s and snake oil filters firmly engaged). Have fun.

How? If you are selling something, new or old, you want to get as much as you can for it. The price of everything is dictated by supply/availability, demand and whatever people are willing to pay. That willingness is governed by quality (real or perceived), desirability, value (again real or perceived), fitness for purpose, fashion and so on.

That might be the case if we bought at the factory gate, but we don't (and in most cases can't). There are shippers', wholesalers' and retailers' mark-ups to add to the equation, in addition to various taxes, import duties, etc, etc. As far as the term "justified" goes, there is no ultimate arbiter governing the cost of instruments or anything else. Prices of just about everything are dictated by what the market will stand/is prepared to pay. If I ever sell my vintage J bass (my daughter will probably be the one to do so after I croak), I shall get as much as I can for it. That will be whatever a willing buyer is prepared to pay. If someone falls in love with it and wants to throw a ton of cash at me, I shan't turn them down. It's the way the world works. When you sell something, are you prepared to accept a price that is "justified", or do you want to get as much as you can for it?

Fender used alder for purely pragmatic manufacturing reasons. It was inexpensive, readily available, easy to work, took finishes well and was not too heavy.

I was wondering whether you work for one of the big instrument manufacturers there.

Thou doth protest too much. If people want to buy (or buy into) something, it's their money. Their reasons for deciding how/where to spend it are theirs. It's not for anyone else to accuse them of being "gullible", etc. I note you live in China. Do you have an axe to grind here?

Very true. It's always been the case. Back in 1962, I was prevailed upon to go to the local grammar school, rather than the technical high school (which was my choice). I was 11 at the time, so had little say in the matter. I hated the place and couldn't wait to leave. My parents, like so many skin-of-the-teeth middle class English couples, were convinced that learning ancient Greek and Latin would better prepare one for a life of shuffling papers and that getting ones hands dirty at work was infra dig. That attitude is all too common in this country and is why there is a dearth of engineers and technical craftsmen/women, whilst we are over-run with people qualified in humanities, etc. We need those engineers and skilled people to save the world. The media studies brigade aren't going to do it for us. I've often thought that one of the main reasons I ended up playing music is that it was one of the few opportunities I had to pursue a craft skill.

No to all of the above. The more "degrees" there are, the more employers insist on them as a condition of employment, no matter what the job. This forces young people to run up large debts and spend extra time in education simply in order to get a foot on the first rung of the ladder. Many universities have become a bit of a racket these days. Most charge as much as possible and some so-called degrees have questionable value.

Does that include a terraced house in Middlesbrough - Cheapest Places to Buy a House | UK Top 20 | Move iQ?

The Double 4 is nice, but pretty pricey. Although I'm a PJB user and fanboi, I'd probably go for the MB as a purely practice amp. You've more chance of finding a used one, too if you want to save more.

P bass is the simplest to wire. Diagrams all over the 'net. Buy the parts and do it yourself. Should take around 15 mins.

It's what Americans call a stone

Given that retail markup on many musical instruments and equipment is around 100%, that's about right.

is he a friend of Dorothy then?

Oh dear