Sometimes it's the small things that make the difference

Upright basses are peculiar things; they're seemingly simple instruments, but there are deceptive complexities in making yours sound and play its very best. 

Often, seemingly minor changes can pay off with surprising improvements to its tone. Something as simple and inexpensive as a new tailpiece cable may energize the sound of your bass. And there are countless threads on "no cost" changes you can make -- quite a few folks advocate swapping the E and A string on the tuning machines, for instance. 

We have some neat upgrades to alter the sound and/or playability of your bass. A couple are from Moser - the Flex Tailpiece has a series of alternate openings for the ball end of your strings, which allows for various afterlengths, which can affect the tone of your instrument (as well as suppress/shift wolf tones). Moser's HVU Height-adjustable Saddle allows you to alter the break angle from the bridge to the tailpiece, which can change the "softness" of the strings based on how sharp or shallow that angle is.

Then you have more conventional things like sound posts, replacement bridges, special mutes, and more. Improving the quality of the bridge (many stock bridges are pretty "meh" as far as wood grade) can greatly improve an instrument's tone - I mean, you figure that the bridge is the main "conduit" of sound from the strings to the body, so the better than transmission, the better the sound!

If you've got a solid tailpiece "bracket" (like those commonly found on Kay and Engelhardt basses) you may be very surprised at how much an inexpensive upgrade to a light, flexible tailpiece cable can improve the sound (and reliability) of your bass. Those old "coat hanger" brackets tend to buzz, too...

Even changing from a steel endpin to a titanium or carbon fiber model can alter the tone (for good or for bad) - the stiffness and weight of the endpin will affect the resonance and response of most instruments. And the sum of all the little changes you can make, often for not a ton of money, can add up to a pretty substantial improvement. 

So yes, sometimes it is the small things that make big differences. And if I were in a corny mood, I could easily draw the comparison to one's life and personal happiness, but I won't go there, at least this time. But I'm sure you get the idea!