prowla

I bought a Washburn Status (fretted) new when they came out; it was OK, but not great. It went when I bought a real Status Graphite (which was in a totally different league!).

I tend not to buy advance tickets for anything, as you never know what might come up to get in the way of things. When I saw this one, I thought it didn't quite add up.

Hence why you hardly ever see them for sale! 🙂

TBH, I never much connected with Wals. But now I'd have one because they are desirable. Ain't that a thing...

Well, that takes the biscuit!

Ugly things and stupid money!

I think it was Chris Spedding on guitar and maybe Roxy's drummer.

@ash sold a 4001FL on here a few months ago - I forced myself not to bite!

I'd quite like a Gus; I had a go on @Happy Jack's some time ago - I think he said he acquired it from @BigRedX ?

I've only seen two IRL, including mine. Yep - overpriced. I've never liked The Duke - I don't get the point of doing a headless and then putting normal tuners are the arris end.

I can beat that - my ticket was free! (It was some promotion, but I don't remember which company.)

Oh boy - I'm on a roll! This was a weird one - they did a short run of them with bits cut of. I would like another model too.

Aha! - mine needs a spot of doing up. I think it might've been overpainted too.

I've got a 5-er; it's a nice bass, if rather large. It cost me an Epiphone EB0 plus a couple of hundred quid.

I like a bit of Roxy Music and even have a box-set of their albums. I do have some negatives though: I could do without some of the over-affected singing - he's got a great voice which stands up on its own. I just plain do not like Virginia Plain (and we used to play it in a band I was in). I'm not a fan of Jealous Guy either, but I guess it made him a load of money! 🙂 I saw Bryan Ferry at Hammersmith Apollo (I think it was called the Apollo) some years ago; I parked at Westfield, so that puts it after 2008. One or two of his old mates were in the band and it might've been Guy Pratt on bass; there were a couple of dancers on a raised platform at the back. It was a rather good show.

I've sometimes wondered about nicking one out of some of the cars that go past. 🙂

As per notes a 2kW amp is just under twice as loud as a 250W one (all other things being equal).

Power rating is not a measure of how loud a given system will be. As I understand it, a general rule is that 10x Watts = 2x volume (with all other things being equal). So 1000W = twice as loud as 100W (all other things being equal). That's why a 50W amp seems surprisingly loud - I've had a 600W bass amp drowned out by a 50W guitar amp. The "all other things being equal" is a variable, however; as noted speaker efficiency comes into play, as does the number of speakers, amp Class A,B,D, valves vs tubes, and so-on. Now, on to the power rating of speakers and amps. The general standard is to rate in Watts RMS (root mean square), which is a calculation of a stylised continuous average power. Since there's a numbers game where bigger is better, some systems will be rated at peak power instead, which is perhaps 40% higher (1.4x). One or the other may be more relevant in some cases, or both may be worth considering. How to damage a speaker... Now, there are three factors which contribute to a speaker's power handling: How much current the wires which comprise the speakers coils can handle before they fail. How the impedance varies under load and frequency range. Whether the speaker cone hits the end of its travel and stops behaving as it should. If any of the above's limits are exceeded then damage is likely to ensure. However, note that things like distortion (intended or not) change the profile of the frequencies being sent to the speaker (distortion is generally the introduction of higher frequencies), which might add unexpected stresses to the speaker if it is not designed to handle it (eg. it doesn't have a crossover or low-pass filter). So, the Wattage numbers are not an absolute. As a general rule of thumb, if you want to protect your speakers it's a good idea to have speakers rated capable of handling the maximum output of the connected amps and not drive things flat-out. It's also an idea to have the speakers pointing at your listening devices (ie. your ears!) so you can hear them, rather than along the floor inaudibly flapping your flares. But it's all a bit complicated!

I wonder if giving it a picture of a 1-string bass would freak it out?

I saw one in Wunjo on Thursday.

You're a bit late with your barrow! 🙂

I have 3 Warwick Corvette 5-strings and they are each different; one in particular has a thicker neck which is not suited to my hands. I would assume that there are per-instrument variations in the other models too and thus you couldn't have 100% confidence that the one you were looking at would be just like the one someone had let you have a go on. TBH, though, the same applies to most instruments.

I've seen it for musical instruments, watches, and even a tool box. The issue is probably that they train the system using its own output, which therefore reinforces its ability to output meaningless drivel. It's the AI equivalent of inbreeding. I don't see how it will improve without them doing a rethink, because (if it is AI and not just a rule-based search & replace falsely presented as "AI") the system has been in place for many months and built its knowledge base on poor data. I did have a number of pages of predefined searches on eBay, which excluded the key phrases endemic in the "AI" descriptions to weed them out so I didn't have to see them. But, alongside that, eBay have also chosen to endorse counterfeits, using another implementation of its "AI" to assess reports, and declare no contravention of listing policy found; as a result, I lost faith in their service. They then introduced buyers fees (aka "buyer protection"), which states "If an item doesn’t arrive, is faulty or damaged, or doesn’t match the listing description, you can request a refund within 30 days of the delivery date." and "Experts verify the authenticity of your item for free and carry out a multi-point inspection all at no extra cost.", but how can you trust that when they are actively generating those descriptions and wilfully rejecting reports of counterfeits? So I've pretty much stopped using eBay.

Older Ric basses had a Tune-o-Matic style bridge sitting on a large tailpiece/baseplate which many didn't like. It was recently replaced with a newer V2 model which is a different design and provides full adjustment; that's what's on the mapleglo one in @tvickey's post. So my comment was a bit of a joke because that issue is resolved on that bass. The bridge issue is a matter of opinion; it appeared in 1963 and persisted for 50 years, during which time Rickenbacker sold a lot of instruments. Some people just complain that the Ric isn't a Fender, but if it was then it wouldn't be a Ric! Back to the bridges... The older ones were made with a curvature to match the fingerboard, so that never needed adjusting and there was just a screw at each end for the overall action. The intonation is a little more finicky to adjust because: i. the trailing ends of the strings sit directly above the adjusters, making them difficult to access, ii. the bridge height adjustment sinks into the tailpiece and the curvature of the tailpiece casting can further block access, and iii. there is limited lengthwise travel in the saddles on a tune-o-matic, and it can be necessary to disassemble it and turn individial ones arround so the asymmetric "V" is orientated in the opposite direction. Some folks also don't like the older Ric "hair-pin" truss-rods, but they're generally fine and virtually never need adjusting. Plus there were two of them! If you are an incessant tweaker then the important message is that they didn't work like Fender ones and you could damage the bass by assuming they did. This led to them having a bit of a bad name as people would find out the hard way. The instructions said not to use the truss-rod to shift the neck, but rather to flex the neck to position (by holding it over your knee and pressing against the 1st fret) (or you can use clamps on a workbench of you want to be more professional about it) and using the truss-rod adjustment to hold it in place. Actually I've seen that recommended as a general approach for older instruments (even Fenders). Rics have moved with the times and now they have the V2 bridge (I think it's based on a Schaller 3D, which was used on a couple of Ric models anyway) and they've shifted to a single dual-action truss-rod, so folks can adjust to their hearts content. But there are a heck of a lot of older RIcs about, soldiering on, doing their job and generally they don't need tweaking: just get them set up once and keep buying the same strings. So, it's not a running joke that nobody adjusts them; it's rather that they generally don't need a lot of adjusting.

It's the fabled "difficult to adjust" Ric bridge issue!