lemmywinks

Is he buying this himself or are you purchasing it for him? If it's the former just get him to buy a Fishman of his own, problem sorted. Seeing as you already have PA and monitoring an amp is a bit pointless IMO. If funds won't stretch to a Fishman then this might work, still has a notch filter for mid set feedback busting and is only £36 with the BLACKFRI20 code. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/315171151745 Does have a 10 megaohm impedance but no mid freq and a single treble control, you can dial out piezo quack and harsh high end at the desk though.

Fishman Platinum Stage or Pro, probably more economical to grab a used Pro given the current prices and you can nick it for bass if he loses interest due to the switchable eq. They're basically Swiss army knives for guitars (both 6 string and proper ones) and have an especially useful feature set for acoustics. Can DI to the PA and/or go straight into a powered cab.

I'm getting a TS101 soldering iron of Mrs lemmywinks, about £42 off AliExpress. Might be a good present for tinkerers, can be powered by a laptop charger or USB Type C.

It's as true now as it was last year. Truerer in fact.

That Carvin B4 at £450 is a steal, shame about the thumb rest mods though and the bridge is also a cheap replacement. It will probably have originally had a nice Hipshot B style which looks much better: https://fenderfever.com/products/1?_pos=63&_fid=cdb17b57b&_ss=c

I'd be waiting for the next set of Ultralites to appear in the Marketplace. Guyker do some alternatives at various price points and hole diameters. A couple here: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005010061436369.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005008360034080.html

Sire V7 is a great first (and second, third, fourth...) 5 string and that one is especially pretty, they do tend to be on the heavier side although obviously this varies. I sold mine after fracturing my left clavicle but was otherwise perfectly happy with it and it was a fantastic live bass. It was a whopping 11.6lb which was heavy even for a Gen 1 Alder V7, usually they're in the 9-10lb region. A used Sadowsky Metro Express (the Chinese ones) might be a good alternative if weight is an issue, possibly one of the higher end Cort GB series as well if you can find a used one.

One of the GB Modern's I briefly owned had a similar issue with Cort's (I think they make these in house) Markbass preamp - intermittent sound with a constantly draining battery leading to low volume and distortion. No visible shorts anywhere so assumed it was the preamp at fault. It's a very good pre when you get a working one with a sensible freq point for the bass control, I was originally intending to swap it out but kept it in there.

I always thought the US CS was more seldom used and just for one time artist orders whereas the Japanese CS did the small high end product runs as well as artist stuff. Odd that it doesn't say where these are made.

Assume these are Japan Custom Shop builds? If so the price is nothing out of the ordinary, that's where their top artists' instruments are built.

There's currently a bass I sold on FB Marketplace (that old charity shop Hondo, think you had one) being flipped for double what I listed it for, not only has he used my pictures but also copy/pasted the description, right down to the bits where I detailed the work I'd done on it and the new parts I'd fitted, all recounted in first person. Wouldn't even mind but the pictures I took were awful as my phone at the time had a rubbish camera! It's been on there for ages probably because my original price was the market value and the flipped price is about £100 too much.

Some fine strewtherie there.

Not specific to the Joyo but reports on the PJB X4 (which this seems to be a loose clone of and is similarly capable) suggest that it can sit in with one or two acoustic guitars but pretty much runs out of headroom to get there. Maybe Joyo will make an affordable version of the Double Four? There's definitely a market for people who want this form factor but don't want to pay PJB money.