I make about 12 different endpin types on my big old lathe: wood, steel, aluminum, carbon fiber, and titanium for one major reason:
-every single person seems to have a completely different preference directly related to how much time they spend reading on the internet and obsessing vs. how much time they spend practicing and playing!
But...it is a pretty small indulgence, so I encourage folks to experiment away in the same manner that I usually keep a half dozen materials and weights of tailpieces available for them to swap out and an equal amount of soundposts in different woods & materials. You can buy a very nice new endpin a lot cheaper than a set of nice strings, but how often do folks experiment with that end of the bass? We've got a whole forum of string addicts here!
Often I see a lot of contradictions, such as using a lightweight wood for the new endpin but mashing it into a very heavy ebony endpin socket that the tailwire attaches to, or with the New Harmony, they use a very nice solid carbon fiber rod but it goes into a piece of junk injection molded plastic socket that warps and deforms from basic string tension.
Often getting a new endpin also means cleaning up and reaming what may have been a very loose or worn out old tapered hole in the bass block. Without a clean, well fit junction, nothing transfers sound very well, so it is often that improvement that makes a big difference. My favorite humor is when they get a new bridge, new soundpost, new tailwire, and glue 3 foot of loose seams and then claim the improvement is from a $75 endpin swap!
In general, very lightly built responsive basses will have a noticeable difference from subtle changes while on an overbuild 5 string Kay you won't be able to tell the difference between a chopstick and a ten pound cinder block.
Can I repost this from last month? The piggyback multiple crutch tip stack on a 1/4" cello shaft into a small cello endpin pocketed into a 70 year old poor fitting bass endpin terminating into a poorly fit ovalized socket filled with mystery paper, cork, & sawdust gap fillers featuring an old coat hangar "tailwire". How much of the original sound do you think is transmitting through that mess??? Almost any change will produce a noticeable improvement.
How about this "endpin issue":
Nobody will argue the benefit of this improvement:
A few customs, the first in African blackwood & 1" carbon fiber:
One of my personal favorites, fixed length 1 1/8" titanium tubing and another 1" fixed carbon fiber from the "porn star" series, with the primary focus being tough and intentionally non adjustable for some folks who are extremely hard and aggressive on stage:
