G.A.S.
For those of you who don't know that stands for Gear Aquisition Syndrome. It's an ugly disease affecting countless members of TalkBass as well as other musicians, not to mention people with other interests that involve expensive equipment. You know it if you have it. The pressure, the bloating, the embarassing.........oh wait, wrong condition.
What I meant was the gnawing feeling of "gotta have it". The newest amp, the coolest cabinet that you just tried out, the four thousand dollar wonkawood bass that your favorite player used on his last hit "ultra mega funk baby". Most of us here have suffered this painful condition, and many are deep in the agonizing throes of it as we speak. The waking up late at night wondering how much we could sell our children for. Would our spouse notice?
I say try out the new gear. But before you drive yourself crazy, do this. When you find an amp or cab or whatever that you like, come back to the shop with your rig. The whole thing. Your amp, Your cabinets, Your bass. Make an appointment if you have to when you can crank it up and really find out what things sound like. I've been lucky to have a couple of stores near me where they let me do that without having to jump through hoops, but if you have to jump through a hoop or two, do it.
I'm lucky enough to have collected some cool stuff. Not to brag but I'll list it to make my examples meaningful;
SWR Electric Blue Head
Eden WT-400 Head
Alembic F-1X preamp
Alembic SF-2 superfilter preamp/tone processor
Demeter VTBP-201 preamp
DBX 262 Compressor
Stewart 2.1 poweramp
Sans Amp BDDI bass driver DI box
Bag End S15-D 1x15 cabinet
Bag End S12-D 1x12 cabinet
Bag End D10B-D 2x10 cabinet
Aguilar GS112 1x12 + horn tweeter cabinet
Tobias 1986 4 string bass
Whew, a big list, (not nearly as big as some of yours - ), but I listed it to give you my benchmark for comparison. Most of it was bought after a lot of reasearch and exhaustive tryout. I've had other stuff, but this is what has stuck. When I find a head or cabinet or bass that's giving me goosebumps i schlep my stuff (not always all of it) down for comparison. I'm not picking on Aguilar, but I'll use some of their fine stuff as an example because that's what I've most recently been trying and having G.A.S. pains for. Before i get into trouble, let me say that Aguilar stuff is tops and if i didn't already have what i have i would have had to buy a lot of aggie products in the past few months. Anyhow, I was floored by the DB-750 so to be fair i brought the alembic and demeter preamps and the stewart poweramp along with my bass. Bottom line, the 750 is a killer amp, sounds great, and is as loud as hell. However, I got just as loud bridging the stewart, and i liked my preamps a wee bit better than the preamp in the 750. If i had the money i would love to get a 750, but there's no need to sell my stuff to get it. Likewise, i thought the aguilar DB-500 was an awesome amp, but i brought down the eden, sans amp and my bass for a test drive, (i also brought out my warmouth 8 string because I'm more likley to use distortion with that). Result? The DB-500 is a fantastic amp with a great overdrive sound. Tonally i think the eden and the aggie are darn close in clean mode, and i preferred the sans amp distortion to the aggie distortion, but that's a very subjective decision. Volume wise the aggie was a wee bit louder, but not in an earthshaking manner. No need to sell my eden for half of what it cost me and still have to come up with six more bills to buy the aggie. If i didn't have the eden? Well, aguilar would have been getting a warranty card in the mail. I could go on, but you get the point. BTW, the tobias has saved me a lot of money, it's gone head to head with foderas, alembics, elricks, etc and always been better or just as good. Thank you Mike! 
Personally i think it's great that there is a percentage of players who have to have the "latest and greatest" gear. That makes for a superb used market for me, and more importantly, for the younger players who need to get a quality and powerful amp, but can't shell out a few grand for a new amp and cabs. For an example, remember when Eden and SWR were THE hi-fi amps? Guess what, they still sound darned good and there are a lot of players benifiting from 500 dollar wt-400's and Bass 350's, not to mention 300 dollar 4x10s.
Yeah this post was long, but It's been on my mind as of late. Got G.A.S.? Bring your stuff in and compare. You just might find out that a quick A/B demo and some mylanta is all you need.
For those of you who don't know that stands for Gear Aquisition Syndrome. It's an ugly disease affecting countless members of TalkBass as well as other musicians, not to mention people with other interests that involve expensive equipment. You know it if you have it. The pressure, the bloating, the embarassing.........oh wait, wrong condition.
What I meant was the gnawing feeling of "gotta have it". The newest amp, the coolest cabinet that you just tried out, the four thousand dollar wonkawood bass that your favorite player used on his last hit "ultra mega funk baby". Most of us here have suffered this painful condition, and many are deep in the agonizing throes of it as we speak. The waking up late at night wondering how much we could sell our children for. Would our spouse notice?I say try out the new gear. But before you drive yourself crazy, do this. When you find an amp or cab or whatever that you like, come back to the shop with your rig. The whole thing. Your amp, Your cabinets, Your bass. Make an appointment if you have to when you can crank it up and really find out what things sound like. I've been lucky to have a couple of stores near me where they let me do that without having to jump through hoops, but if you have to jump through a hoop or two, do it.
I'm lucky enough to have collected some cool stuff. Not to brag but I'll list it to make my examples meaningful;
SWR Electric Blue Head
Eden WT-400 Head
Alembic F-1X preamp
Alembic SF-2 superfilter preamp/tone processor
Demeter VTBP-201 preamp
DBX 262 Compressor
Stewart 2.1 poweramp
Sans Amp BDDI bass driver DI box
Bag End S15-D 1x15 cabinet
Bag End S12-D 1x12 cabinet
Bag End D10B-D 2x10 cabinet
Aguilar GS112 1x12 + horn tweeter cabinet
Tobias 1986 4 string bass
Whew, a big list, (not nearly as big as some of yours -
), but I listed it to give you my benchmark for comparison. Most of it was bought after a lot of reasearch and exhaustive tryout. I've had other stuff, but this is what has stuck. When I find a head or cabinet or bass that's giving me goosebumps i schlep my stuff (not always all of it) down for comparison. I'm not picking on Aguilar, but I'll use some of their fine stuff as an example because that's what I've most recently been trying and having G.A.S. pains for. Before i get into trouble, let me say that Aguilar stuff is tops and if i didn't already have what i have i would have had to buy a lot of aggie products in the past few months. Anyhow, I was floored by the DB-750 so to be fair i brought the alembic and demeter preamps and the stewart poweramp along with my bass. Bottom line, the 750 is a killer amp, sounds great, and is as loud as hell. However, I got just as loud bridging the stewart, and i liked my preamps a wee bit better than the preamp in the 750. If i had the money i would love to get a 750, but there's no need to sell my stuff to get it. Likewise, i thought the aguilar DB-500 was an awesome amp, but i brought down the eden, sans amp and my bass for a test drive, (i also brought out my warmouth 8 string because I'm more likley to use distortion with that). Result? The DB-500 is a fantastic amp with a great overdrive sound. Tonally i think the eden and the aggie are darn close in clean mode, and i preferred the sans amp distortion to the aggie distortion, but that's a very subjective decision. Volume wise the aggie was a wee bit louder, but not in an earthshaking manner. No need to sell my eden for half of what it cost me and still have to come up with six more bills to buy the aggie. If i didn't have the eden? Well, aguilar would have been getting a warranty card in the mail. I could go on, but you get the point. BTW, the tobias has saved me a lot of money, it's gone head to head with foderas, alembics, elricks, etc and always been better or just as good. Thank you Mike! Personally i think it's great that there is a percentage of players who have to have the "latest and greatest" gear. That makes for a superb used market for me, and more importantly, for the younger players who need to get a quality and powerful amp, but can't shell out a few grand for a new amp and cabs. For an example, remember when Eden and SWR were THE hi-fi amps? Guess what, they still sound darned good and there are a lot of players benifiting from 500 dollar wt-400's and Bass 350's, not to mention 300 dollar 4x10s.
Yeah this post was long, but It's been on my mind as of late. Got G.A.S.? Bring your stuff in and compare. You just might find out that a quick A/B demo and some mylanta is all you need.
