Harley Benton B-650 Black Progressive Series Reviews

Harley Benton B-650 Black Progressive Series

Got the bass in a weeks time and out the box it was stunning to look at.

The quality of the build is impressive and the tone of it out the box is AMAZING!!! Stock as it is now is a solid bass to have!

Great instrument for the price!

I got this bass about 2 years ago, and it quickly became my go to instrument.

It sounds great! You'll need to spend a little time setting it up properly, but once you do it plays great.

I've had some minor issues with this bass since I got it. Nothing that isn't easy to fix though.

I also have the frettless version, and haven't had any issues with it so far.

My first Harley Benton, super impressed!

I just wanted a cheap string that I could test the waters with to see if I liked them, and boy did I get so much more.

I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting much when I opened the box. YouTube reviews can only be so reliable for various reasons, and I've learned the hard way with my first bass, a Jackson. However, I opened the box and was greeted by a pristine, damage-less bass guitar. Yeah, that's kind of a low bar, but keep in mind this thing is insanely cheap.

How does it sound?

Amazing!! My dream bass has always been a Spector, but unfortunately, I don't have 2000 dollars lying around. This sounds pretty darn close to what I've been dreaming about; and for under CAD 300, that's ridiculous (in a good way).

Also: Battery trapdoor. Awesome. I am so sick of having to buy duct tape to get the back panel off of my guitar/bass to replace the battery.

The hardware seems good quality, which is very pleasantly surprising considering its price. Even the battery trapdoor seems pretty solid.

Needless to say, if I had known about these guys when I was starting out, most of my stuff would have probably been made by Harley Benton.

Overall the value of this bass is ludicrous and HB will be getting my business again!

Excellent bass!!

I cannot be more happy with this bass. Its sound is amazing and it is quite comfortable to play. Not too heavy, but heavy enough though.

Not upset anymore!

From my first attempt to get my very first, i was upset, It arrived in two pieces, the electronic components was the only things holding it together. Not what I was expecting at all. I said I will not do this again I wanted my money back! Second attempt, successful, I'm impressed! I love this bass, even though it bit me, the frets are pretty sharp.

Unbelievable Value!

I've playing since the 80s and have owned many basses. Also I've worked in a few music stores over the years. I have no idea how Harley Benton can offer this level of quality of these prices. I'm not complaining though. Bought this for a "couch bass" but will be using this at gigs. Love this thing! One star lost on quality because of sharp fret edges but I took care of those quickly and easily.

Great bass for the price

Sounds good, but needs some work. Potentiometers dangle a little. The strings are a little rattling and the 4th potentiometer is inconvenient to use. The bass itself is well assembled.

Great for the price

I am a guitar player but I wanted a cheap bass for home recordings, for me this bass is great.

Brilliant for the price, but has some flaws

The bass I received has a very good quality neck, amazing considering the purchase price. The body and hardware is also very good. On this basis, the price/performance is incredible. The pickups don't seem to be particularly good, but I guess this is to be expected, given the price.

There are however a couple of issues.

The original strings were unplayable. I replaced them immediately.

The main issue is that, at least for me, it is very difficult to slap/pop on this bass, due to 1/ interference incurring if a string touches the neck pickup when mute slapping, and 2/ due to the neck pickup being too close to the neck, making popping difficult.

I'm considering pulling out the pickups, replacing the bridge pickup with a different one, and putting a cover over the neck pickup hole. Perhaps a small redesign should be done. I'd rather have a single bridge pickup a bit father from the bridge (like a Stingray) than these two pickups and the resulting issues.

For this money, you won't find anything better, good bass

Great for the price, with some minor issues

Prefer the sound of this over my SR500 which was over twice the price, so very pleased on the sound.

String spacing makes for great playability with fingers and pick, but makes popping slightly more tricky.

The shape of the body makes playing sitting down quite difficult, as the bass constantly slides off my leg.

Came perfectly intonated and nice low action, however there is fret buzz on the first fret of the B string

brilliant instrument

the instrument is of a standard a 700 euro instrument may not be. It is fantastic and sounds brilliant

Great first 6-string bass

The best 6-string bass for you and your wallet. It's cheap but reliable. It does lose pitch the higher up the neck you go but it's not that bad honestly. The price/quality ratio is very good with this one.

For the price this simply can not be beat!

I wanted to get into the extended range bass world, but was priced out of the market by most other brands. I bought this with some degree of skepticism, but I have to say this bass has been incredible, especially for the price. Action and set up was superb out of the box. All I had to do was tune, pop in the nine volt and go. Zero buzzing, perfect fret ends, and great playability. I especially like the narrower string spacing, which has made adjusting to the world of six strings so much easier. My only complaint is the level of the pickups in passive mode. It's almost unusably quiet. But active is great and sounds amazing throughout the entire range, so it really isn't much of a problem in my book. If you want to get started in the world of extended range bass, this is an absolute must buy!

Impressive Deal

this bass as good as some 280 - 350 Euro bass guitars , no joke

i couldn't believe it when i open the box that i just pay 179 euro for such fine instrument along with gig-bag and cable , lets go through everything : tuners is stable and roll nicely and not lousy or hard also stays in tune , the neck smooth stained maple back with a black walnut fret-board which i try for the first time it feels like some where between to warmth of rose wood and the smoothness Ebony , frets edged and finished nicely , body is strong solid gloss black no dents or bad finish paint , awesome shape and side curves that made according to your arms position specification for better play-ability , the wiring cavity is isolated and all wiring is highly pro job with the 500k knobs and active mode convertor to 250k for better sound integrity , pickups sounds really good rich , punchy mid, sharp treble and strong low end , bottom line is you pay that few money for such bass .. its a 5 stars deal, Bravo Harley Benton , the bass arrived with low action neck setup and tuned already this bass can handle low action setup with no frets buzz or any problem

Didn't expeсt that

Aсtually, I was pretty muсh amazed by this bass out of the box. Everything was very good and smooth, not even a tiny blemish in the finish, no wood filler seen on the neсk, no sharp fret edges, the tuners work really well and hold in tune even after hard slap grooves.

The only thing I had to сhange is the string height. Strings were quite high above frets on 15+ frets. It was playable smoothly, though I do a lot of tapping and had to adjust string height to my needs.

The sound is pretty good and сan be easily adjusted to sound the best with any type of amps that I had to faсe on different gigs.

The only minus I сan name is that the сutaway doesn't provide aссess to upper frets (like 19-24). May be the plastiс nut is not great, though it doesn't affeсt the tuning stability.

To sum up, a great instrument for the money. Planning to buy the BZ-6000 and сompare them :)

You'd think it was three times the price!

I bought this on a whim as it was so cheap and wanted a six-string to play around with. It easily could pass for a bass around the 5-600 price mark. Would I use it as my main bass? Probably not, but as a backup or a first try on a six-string it's a no brainer.

Unbelievable for the price

Personally i could not have asked for a better bass at this price. Sure it may not look super cool and my neck got a scratched quite quickly, but remember the price.

The sound is also very good in my opinion. It is probably a bit too strong for some genres due to the very hot pickups and may not be for everyone, but replacing pickups is easy anyway if you really do not like them.

Overall it is unbeatable in this price range.

Great Bass for Price

This is an amazing bass for the price. The only thing bad I can say is when I pull out the Passive/Active Volume knob there is a pop and it is not good when amp is on. Also turning on my tuner make the pop.

Great Six String Bass

Very well put together bass feels very nice to play. it arrived pretty much set up to how i like it with a low action, there is very little buzzing on the b string but you can't hear this through the amp. the push pull function for the active/passive pups works well though the drop in sound is very minor, which is great. The bass is pretty light and and doesn't become uncomfortable with prolonged use. I recommend this bass if you are looking for a six string.