After a lot of research I decided to purchase the Yamaha TRBX 304 and the Rumble 40 after reading Josh’s reviews in January 2021.
Keep in mind that these reviews are aimed at beginners and are basically the best bang for your buck when starting out.
Since purchasing them two months ago I have already upgraded both.
I now have a Yamaha TRBX504 and a Rumble 100.
The upgrades have cost me an additional $300 but I now have what I feel is my dream team.
There is nothing wrong with the Rumble 40 in the review but for the additional $100 I got a 12" speaker over the 10" and you can tell the tone difference immediately, because you are moving more air, and additional headroom/power that allows me to play at small jams/venues, which I do, or did before this virus crap hit.
There again there is nothing wrong with the Yamaha TRBX 304 but the upgrade to the TRBX 504 for $200.00 was more than worth it for me, after many discussions with @howard here on the forum . The 504 active/passive switch provides a, selectable, new vintage mellow tone to the Bass probably largely in part to the Alnico V pickups upgrade. I was not happy with the punchier sound of the 304.
And of course if I am at a jam/gig and the battery gives out I do not have to worry about finding a new battery.
Selecting a Bass and Amp is such a personal thing but as long as you get what you are happy with you cannot go wrong, after all, you will be spending a lot of time together.
I guess my main point in this post is - when buying gear do not compromise because in the end you will end up getting what you want so you might as well do it up front.
Honestly I dont feel yamaha is best bang for the buck at the beginning. At least not at my place. You can get Ibanez SR300E for nearly half the price. Yamaha is around 550$ while Ibanez is around 330$. Thing is Josh and team picked out just few of so many options. And left out Ibanez models which are best in range comparing options, quality and price.
But there are surely better bang for buck. For example recently i went to get myself Rumble 100 which is around 450$, but thankfully none were available and I got myself Lirevo B80 for 210$ which is basically same as rumble.
This is subjective but I like the sound of Ibanez more. However at my place we dont have official distributer for Ibanez but we have official yamaha place. And still Ibanez is so much cheaper.
I’m not sure why Josh decided to review the GSR instead of the SR. I wish he’d reviewed the SR300 or 300E instead of the GSR as they are way better and would have been a good recommendation. Maybe he just felt they were similar enough to the TRBX that they would be redundant and he wanted a lower price point.
On paper they are similar, but once you take both in hands and start playing them its totally different. However again this might be subjective. And Ibanez is light as feather. And still has fat tone.
Keep in mind that a lot of professional bassists prefer 10" speakers over 12" or 15". And others don’t. It is another thing that is subjective. Just like string choices, etc.
Just wanted to clarify to others that it is not simply to get a larger speaker and everything is automatically better. There is also a lot more going on differentiating amps besides the speaker size. Even in your example of Rumble 40 to Rumble 100, they are different speaker sizes, but also different speaker manufacturers, so will be a bit different in tone from that as well.
Glad you found what you want though! I may try the same someday, but very happy with the Rumble 40 for now. I do play out with others, but everywhere I go has house amps that I use. Nice to not have to lug an amp around.
Yeah gotta agree with statement about different sizes giving different tones. But regarding these combo amps, usually with bigger sizes comes greater wattage (spooderman pun intended).
I’m trying to remember when Ibanez introduced the E models for the SR300 and 500. They are really much better than the base models and might not have existed then.
I’d definitely go with a TRBX304 over an original SR300, but also likely go with a SR300E over a TRBX304. 3-band EQ plus the coil selector is more generally useful than the TRBX’s two-band and 5-way switch.
Both play great, feel great and sound really good. The neck on the SR and TRBX feel really similar to me and both are super playable. Both make for great entry level basses. So if @Growl was seeing SR300E’s at half the price of a TRBX it’s totally an easy decision to go with the Ibanez in that case. But yeah that pricing is just weird.
