I believe music, as an art, should continually evolve and be very distinctive. I ended up playing the bass lines of songs because that was always the part of the songs that seemed to be the most recognizable and the most powerful. It was also easy for me to figure out. The first time I picked up a bass, I was awestruck. I ended up trading half of all I owned for a piece of shit Cort P-Bass copy, and started playing in a band.
Amplifiers are the other half of the complete electric bass rig.
Right now, I'm using a Gallien Kreuger 800RB amplifier and two Hartke 4x10s. The weight and the feel - graceful curves flow as if it were sculpted for a museum. Really good basses tend to be very expensive, hand-made instruments using exotic woods and a blend of cutting edge technology with tried and true construction techniques. My MusicMan Sterling is an extremely well constructed and well thought out design. The Fender Bass is, of course, the standard to which all others are measured.