Harley Benton B-550FL BK Progressive Series

Blown away, incredible value

Received the bass a few days ago, it came playing perfectly and even intonated properly. Put flats on right away and lowered the strings, I didn’t even have to touch the truss rod. The tone is quite nice if nothing fancy, and the active passive switch does pop as other reviewers noted. A mid band for the EQ would be nice, but between amps and EQ pedals definitely not necessary. The passive mode even sounds really nice, close to the active unlike some more expensive offerings where passive mode sounds bland. Fit and finish is also pretty on point. Legitimately have nothing to complain about.

Great bass

Great great instrument. comfortable and good sound. Only wish it came with some explanation of how the knobs work, or was posted on the website. great quality of constructin

All around very good.

very lightweight and playable.

Fretboard could use some oil.

only issue is one of the strings came with a very large cut on it, through the outer winding. I wasn't planning on using the stock strings but this string is pretty much gone.

no damage on the fretboard around the cut so must have been a bad string from the get go.

Overall really good for the price.

This bass is really fun to jam with and it's fairly easy to modify. My only criticism which can easily be fixed was I don't like how the strings sound on the bass so I changed them myself. However my taste in bass sound is subjective. Fantastic price for the quality and another excellent make of Harley Benton

How hard is it to finish it properly?

Great tone and everything works for an amazingly low price, but maybe it's too low? A little quality control on the fitting wouldn't go amiss. Mine needed a thick shim to be made and fitted under the front of the neck heel before I could drop the bridge saddles to a playable height. And I had to fettle the nut slot height. The allen key supplied doesn't fit the B string saddle screws and spins uselessly. Not good enough on a new bass.

Wow

Fantastic bass for the price, can't fault anything.

WOW

Why spend all that money on "Name" basses, whilst this bass is available, GREAT SOUND any genre, only downside is strings, but with "La Bella" no problem, great finish, tuners, pick ups & bridge fine, holds intonation, so play with confidence.

Great fretless bass for beginners

My sister is a double bass player, and I've always been amazed by the expressivity/tone of the instrument and the ability to play microtonal stuff/alternative tunings... this, together with listening to Cynic, Exivious and Spiral Architect, made me want a fretless bass really bad!

I'm extremely happy with this instrument. From the perspective of a beginner, the bass sounds great and it's easy to play. Once you get used to the tone controls, you can get close to a more "jazzy", warm fretless sound. It stays in tune for a long time, and the strings are fine. And especially... it's super cheap! I believe this has a great quality considering its price.

If anything, I would say that the bass gets distorted easily with the B string, and if not you have to play it very softly which sometimes doesn't match the dynamics I'm using on the other strings. I'm not sure if this has to do with the electronics, the neck bolts or the string itself.

Great fretless for home studio recordings

Great fretless for home studio recordings! Smooth and easy though I replaced the roundwound strings with flatwounds to get this typical fretless sound. Let your Mick Karn out!

Your only option if you want it all at an extremely low price

Play-wise it feels pretty good, the neck is fine, the instrument is built pretty okay. But the pichups are not very good. I cannot seem to be able to find a very good tone, and especially that low B string gets lost in a mix, and all these very low frequencies. Not unusably bad by any means, but don't have the highest expectations coming here.