Would I benefit from a new bow?

[Michael Holden]

I think we do understand your point, my point is the pricetag is not a good way to determine a good bow. How many times do you see "unamed german bow $3,000". I have found in my experiance that those bows are priced based on it's playing capabilities. Now the owner of that string shop is the person determining the price. Ken, you are quite the experianced bass player, and although I have never heard you, I am going to assume you are a good player. If you picked up that bow, after owning a sartory, and your lipkins bows; you may have said "okay that bow is $800"
It is all relative. In my personal experiance I have tried 3 german bows (french frog, origin in Germany) and I have also tried 2 Marco Raposo bows... One of the Raposo Bows KILLED the German bows. The other Raposo was good but not great. I also think the Brazilian bowmakers do not get the credit they deserve. They charge must less for more bow. Everybody I've been talking to says that is due to the fact they don't have to import their wood, that they just take it from their plantations... I don't buy that just because every Raposo bow I have tried is definitly just as capable and playable has the $2k bows I have tried, The raposo bows are going for $1k. I don't see getting rid of the "importing costs" of importing the wood cutting the cost of the bow in half.
I'm not comparing these to Sartory or Lipkins bows... but I am comparing these to MANY bows out there in the $2k price range.