Harley Benton B-550FL BK Progressive Series Reviews

Nice fretless for very little money

I bought this bass for practice and gigging with a live band. I am quite happy with it.

Pros:

The neck feels very thin and light: easy to play.

Bass is lightweight: My back and shoulders are happy.

Active electronics can be turned off. This is good, since I don't need the active eq.

Cons:

The thin neck is not very stable while playing, as it resonates quite a bit when low notes are played (the lowest octave of standard 5-srting tuning).

The body contour is not ideal for resting my right arm.

The metal hardware (bridge, tuners) feel a bit flimsy. But they have been ok so far. One tuner (A) felt quite stuck, but mineral oil spray fixed this.

The fingerboard wood is way too soft for roundwound strings, and this will result in heavy grooves on the fingerboard where strings contact wood. I ended up coating the fingerboard with super glue (cyanoacrylate). This was quite laborious, but solved the problem.

My other bass, fretted, is a 2000€ Warwick. The difference in quality is noticeable, of course. But still I feel that this was a nice buy. You get what you pay for.

Update after a couple of years:

Two tuners out of five have failed by now. First the tuner hardware started to fee stiff, then the mechanism just broke. The bass is not usable now, before I get a new set of tuner hw.

Also, the thin metal chassis of the monorail bridge hardware parts is showing signs of fatigue, and it is starting to bend.

Therefore I lower my quality rating to 2 stars.

Stunning bass for the money!

Lovely instrument that plays like a dream, very good EQ with a passive/active pull volume pot which is an excellent feature. Very stable tuning and no flappy B string which some 5 strings can suffer from. Punchy sound without being to boomy, not as bright sounding as I'd like but a string upgrade would fix that. Comfortable to play and nicely balanced as the compact body might have made the bass neck heavy but not in this case. Only draw back is as it's fretless no more drinking during gigs!

Good powerful sound.

Very nice looking instrument, good hardware, tuners hold pretty good, bridge feels good, no sharp screws. I like the pickups, very open and clear sound, very powerful low end, yet very clear attack and "punch".

It respond pretty well to slap, which is unusual for a fretless instrument.

Excellent bass for the money

I needed a 5 string fretless for a particular theatre gig and didn't want to spend loads as it is not something which I would be using all the time. My regular bass is worth nearly £2000 and honestly, this bass sounds just as good if not in some ways better. I was really impressed by the setup and playability although the strings were not the best so I put on a set of Rotosounds. You can tell that some of the hardware, particularly the bridge is not the strongest engineering but even if I had to replace it all this would still be a bargain. It has no lines on the fretboard but since it was so cheap I didn't mind making little lines on the top edge of the fretboard to help get me started playing fretless. While gigging with this bass was one of the only times that an audience member has specifically come up to me afterwards and commented on the lovely bass sound!

Suprisingly good

how is that possible that you can get such quality for this price?

I am very surprised.

Very nice 5 string bass

After buying the 4 string version I also wanted to try the 5 string version.

The 5 string version is of similar quality. After setting-up properly and replacing the stock roundwound strings with the D' Daddario ETB92-5 nylon tape wounds, this bass also performs very well.

The paintjob on mine is flawless.

One issue I encountered when replacing the strings is that the tapewound B string is sligly thicker compared to the original round wound. I had to widen the groove in the nut a bit for the B-string to seat properly.

For the money, both the 4 string and 5 string version are unbeatable, but be prepared to set it up properly and replace the stock roundwound strings with something more to your liking.

Very good value for money

After searching Ebay for hours and hours to find an old bass with frets which I planned to remove, hence make a fret less bass I finally gave up. Al the second hand basses on Ebay are way too expensive or are broken.

So I decided for this 5 string fret less bass with the extremely low price... feeling rather suspicious and it helped that I noticed the "30 days money back guarantee" because I had no high hopes at all.

How wrong I was.

Delivery was within 36 hours and when I unpacked the box I found a shiny black bass which was playable right out of the box. WOW !

And it plays well. It sounds well. I have the bass now for five days and no way I will send it back. At the moment I am making small adjustments, like the strings a bit lower and really fine-tune the bridge, checking the neck, so it will play even better.

The first review of this bass here on the website was very helpful for me because there a lot of the functions are explained which I could not find elsewhere yet. ( A small manual in print or on-line would have been welcome.) Oiling the fretboard was a good tip indeed.

The sustain is not too much but I do not need it so no problem there. And hey, the price is low so the value for money is very good.

=== edit ====

When I brought the (huge) carton box where my bass was delivered in to the trash I noticed a piece of paper sticked on the box ... here some valuable information about the bass was printed, so if I would have looked better when the bass was delivered I would not have made the remark about the manual ....

The bass and I get to know eachother better and better, did the first few gigs with the bass and it went really well. People even ask about the bass, 'what is this ? Is it really a bass ?? "

Yep - still very happy.

Fretless fun!

I've been playing bass since christmas time (guitarist before that), and always fancied having a go at fretless bass and I seen this model online and thought it looked great.

It plays very nicely, holds the tuning well and looks great as well. It has a nice low action, smooth fretboard and I found it quite easy to reproduce the same notes without having the fretlines on the neck.

It has a great tone even unplugged if you're noodling about - the phyiscal experience is a lot different than a fretted bass, i felt much more space and freedom in my playing.

It's a steal at that price, well built, looks the part and sounds lovely active or passive

You can hear it on this track - >

Get it, it's great!

5-String Fretless Bass

Plain and simple in appearance, but well constructed. The neck and fretless board are particularly well made. The tuners work well, the electrics are adequate, but not spectacular. My only concern is the bridge, which at first glance looks attractive, but is not solid enough and so causes rather unsympathetic vibrations (a slight rattling). This i believe is due to it's "5-piece" design. I should be able to fix this, if not i will have to replace the bridge. Over all a good instrument, if a little plain!!

Pleasantly suprised

I have been playing a fretless 4 string (various) for a number of years and decided that I wanted to extend the tonal possibilities to a 5 string but without spending too much to see if the added string was an essential I needed.

After much internet and soul searching over build desire I stumbled on the H.B. fretless...

Seemed too good to be true... 5 string. Active pick ups. nicely styled...Must be a nag to play... but hey, £107..., Ok lets order and see.

It came today (mon) after ordering last week (tues), and... Well I am a little in awe of the whole deal to be honest.

Out of the box... It is very aesthetically pleasing, but also being an alder body is surprisingly light. The finish is smart black and unfussy. the quality of finish at this price point is superb. The neck, truly straight. Action a little high but easily sorted. strings are awful cheap roundwounds, but... in tune with each other and intonation not too bad too. A quick tune and adjustment to the bridge helped out, but I will be changing to flatwounds asap, so full set up can wait. Even so, it is remarkably playable and the fretboard which I expected to be a little bad is actually as good as found on many fretleses £700 range.

The pups are not quite what you would expect either, don;t get me wrong they're not brilliant but they are more than workable and in conjunction with the active pull pot volume control and tone pots there is a range of tone that is both usable and expressive.

I will break it in over the next month and update later, but my initial thoughts are that this is a very very good fretless bass for a very little price... stunned really.

Very little to fret about!

A well made fretless 5 string bass guitar and excellent value for money. Well balanced. You have the choice of an active or passive pick-up system operated via the pull-push action of the volume control. This is very convenient because the only grouse I have is that it eats batteries at an alarming rate. I now only insert the battery prior to playing. Only the issue with battery durability stops me giving it full marks

Harley benton 5 string fretless bass B 550 FL BK progressive

Looks and plays really great . Fantastic service. Orderd Wednesday morning,arrived Friday afternoon. Today.Called customer services to check all's ok and was greeted by a polite and helpful chap who spoke perfect English.The Bass is good quality and of solid construction. Heavier than my yammy fretted and about the same grade.

Sounds good and presently supprised for price. Also had a good set of strings on it and has a reasonably bright tone with a growly punch on the low end which is what I'm looking for. Thinking its a real bargin at only £115. Worth double that. Only long term concern is the bridge not sure if it will last for years but there's a.3 year guarentee so not too botherd. Might change that later same with machine heads. £50 ! Big deal. Neck and board are really nice. Very smart and modern styling for body and neck. Nice proffetional black finish. I have large builders hands so the wide finger board is great for me.handy quick change battery pouch and active circuit adds power and punch for a solo with plenty of range on the controls from heavy bass to fairly bright and clean.put it through my zoom bass effects and an old peavey bass combo sounds really sweet.no lines on finger board but there marks on the side of the neck that are accurate. Well done Theomann and thanks !

I've been after a decent fretless for months but even a second hand one was pushing the piggy bank ! Really cannot fault it