Beedster

Problems sourcing the battery I believe, either became unavailable or uneconomic, I forget which. Part of it might also be that - dare I say - people tend to like passive Precisions, certainly by comparison with P/Js and J/Js, be it cultural or technical, just seems to be the way it is (compare the number of active Jazzes on the market with active Precisions for example). The shame is that the P-Retro was an engineering masterpiece, beautifully designed and engineered, and given most people don't want to have either modify their bass or remove the whole Precision pickguard, John really did his homework. Beautiful piece of kit, sounds beautiful also. I disagree with some of the comments re pickups above, yes they make a difference but whatever that difference, an active circuit will allow you to fine tune it to perfection. I guess it all comes down to what sound is in your head when you're making the choice. I had a passive bass with two Sims/Enfield Quads, PUPs that can do pretty much anything that can be done with various combinations of 8 traditionally oriented coils, and while the range was impressive, adding a J-Retro really gave it life and added some character that, while it wasn't missing, was less obvious and harder to find when run passive. But all of this comes down to preferences and experience really 👍 I've recently picked up a P-Retro from here that I'm hoping to run in one of my Enfield Quad basses simply because I really like the way it works, much more like a Wal preamp than a more traditional B/M/T boost/cut model. Wonder if I can add Wal to the hard-baked Precision/Jazz/Ray settings of the Enfield 🤔

I learned a big lesson trying to sort a fretless board. If you're not 100% sure, take it to a professional 👍

Absolutely, IMO and AOTBE, older heads often sound better than modern heads, while newer cabs often outperform older cabs, so over and above logistics, it's likely an audio win also 👍

Listening to the track, my version would best be described as a loose approximation 👍

East P-Retro is the gold standard, come up for sale on here occasionally 👍

One of my all time fave lines, utterly lovely to play 👍

He must have been driving a Reliant Robin is it was taking him 2+ hours but probably just a little too far along for me, good luck finding the right bassist 👍

Worms from newly opened can, meet World

Love it, love the pianist also 👍

Hi @BloozeBoy, sounds like a nice opportunity for someone, where do you rehearse and where are the majority of your gigs? I'm Kent so I would sadly probably find myself falling into the same trap as your previous bassist if you're wrong end of Essex, but thought I'd ask anyway. Cheers. Chris

There goes my theory

Do they get better the longer they’re left powered on?

I have a Retrovibe in my parts drawer 👍

I’ve got the BV’s, and even the hair, just not the petrol budget 😕

Great gig 👍

Seller of a £12k instrument should either demonstrate better knowledge of it or provide the evidence of someone who does. Clearly doesn’t understand Fender serials, electrics and finishes (OK the latter might be legit - a peek under the guard would be helpful - but it looks to be neither original or the same finish as in the 66 photo. Looks a little like poly in some places also). But either way, still doesn’t look like a ‘62 should look and that’s a big part of it

Tubes and recent change of temperature?

Play folk on foot

Just to chime in here, it only takes a single person to buy a bass, so you should at the very least try selling it for a while before you do anything with it to enhance (or not) it's sellability. You might be surprised how many folks here play fretless, even some like me who only play fretless. Also worth noting that you will almost certainly not regain the costs of a refret in a sale. It's going to take the luthier longer to refret a fretless neck than a fretted neck (i.e. higher cost), even if it were once fretted as is the case with yours.