I live in London, and I don't drive, so I take the Underground (Subway). You see where this is going? Initially I thought that I could lug the bass to practice every Saturday on the Tube. It wasn't too difficult with the 1/2 size Chinese that I hired. But with an 3/4 size bass it's a different ball game. It's much bigger and heavier. And on Saturdays the Tube is packed and people don't appreciate me commuting with a double bass. One time a few kids were running down the stairs, took a corner and almost crashed straight into me. If I keep this up someone's gonna break my bass one day and they ain't gonna pay for it, and I'm gonna break my back and I'm gonna have to pay for it. So I either have to get a car, or get a second bass to leave it in the orchestra's instrument room, and one at home for practice. As you can see I chose wood over metal. I went on evilBay and bought another one of the same make.
These basses have not been modified, but more likely to have been set-up or built to less than ideal specs at the factory. I was gonna do exactly what has been suggested - to find out what they are worth in the best set-up condition. My teacher, who plays a very nice dark sounding 5-string English bass (R.Harris - anyone heard of him? I should find out from my teacher, really), thought that I did well on the purchase and was even considering getting one for herself, especially at that sort of price range. Oh, I forgot to mention... the first bass also come will a really good case and a bow that made my teacher's jaw drop (FWIW). But I shall post that in the bow section.
In the mean time I might have to be stuck with the low bridge set-up. I don't get a whole lot of C-bout clearance, but just about. The naive side of me think this will help with my bowing techniques, but we'll see...
Oh, and back to my initial question - how does the physical size of the bridge affects the sound of a double bass (in my case, particularly the length of the legs)? Does thicker bridge produces more/less volume? Darker/brighter tone? Treated vs untreated? etc etc...
I'm not in the position to spend a lot more money on these basses, so I'll do right by them as far as I can stretch. At least I'm (kinda) settled on the strings hunt.
Good luck to me!!
P.S. Just saw an old tape of Lee Ritenour and Larry Carlton Live in Japan with Melvin Davis on bass. Them Ken Smith basses sound absolute amazing!!! \m/ \m/