I was very satisfied about the way thomman sorted out the shipping of this bass to the UK. This is my first double bass witch i purchased to learn basics and slapping. The bass its self is beautyfull. I always say, an instrument should catch your attention with its appearance, should attract you to wish playing 'em more, inspire you to just go further and learn, achive and succeed. This instrument's been me best playmate in the past couple months, and I feel the progress. I think remarkable progress can't be achived with a poorly built instrument. The bass ain't solid, but the music I'm into doesn't require such a full tone that a solid body bass might provide. It comes with pretty high tension steel (or whatsoever) string witch gonna rip your fingers off, but in fact, will train them. The machine heads are little instable, but what to expect?.... these are all them features easily could be changed by the user. The real value is in the body its self, and the price.... Great bass to start... as a starter the 2k bass will sound rubbish within your hands too. When you're a pro, the cheapest bass will do as well. The main thing's the technique innit?