Harley Benton B-650 Black Progressive Series 4-stars Reviews

Almost perfect

The build quality is amazing and unrivaled by price. The overall sound is very good although less pronounced in the upper register. The only real problems I have are how high up the neck humbucker is making it more difficult for my style of slap technique and the active/passive volume knob being where my hand usually sits for fingerstyle and slap, abruptly muting the instrument while playing.

Excellent, if considering price

Features. Very feature-rich bass guitar (perhaps, even too rich). There are a lots of possibilities to tweak the sound, but the resulting sound is not always usable. Still, works well, considering the fact, it is the cheapest 6-string bass in the universe.

Sound. Quite typical for this kind of instruments, a bit muddy, but OK.

Playability. Very comfortable neck, all good. Has a tendency of neck dive, but this is typical for 6 string basses. Sustain - very good. Tuners and tuning stability - excellent.

Quality. Mine was very well-finished, but needed some fretwork - many of frets were set in a bit different level, so, caused buzz in several places, but fixed easily by fret file. Potentiometers are mostly OK, the only issue I had is loud pop sound when switching between active and passive modes (not a problem, but should remember about this).

Very good affordable 6 string bass

The general construction and sound of this instrument is very good considering the price. The bass is well setup and is easy to play. There is only a little bit of fret sprout (sharp fret ends).

Excellent value for money

I never realised you could get a 6-string bass this cheap. And I certainly never imagined you’d get a bass this cheap with this level of quality.

The bass sounds good, and has a great feel and build quality. It feels like a much more expensive bass. It makes a great beginner 6-string. Although to be honest I feel like I’d need to be playing 6-string a lot before I’d be able to justify spending considerably more money on the next level up.

The bass arrived needing a complete setup: one of the truss rods was way too tight, and the action could not physically have been higher. But these are fairly minor adjustments, which you’d likely want to do on any new bass.

Overall I’m extremely pleased with my bass, and would recommend anyone new to 6-strings to try this out.

An absolute unit.

This thing is beastly, heavy, and great for tuning down to A or lower.

Stays in tune very well.

The only downside is I have an unavoidable fret buzz on the low B string while using the 2nd fret only. Unsure if that's due to fret leveling, but even with trying to set it up differently it was still unavoidable which is kind of a bummer.

Pickups are okay, I would probably change them at some point but they get the job done well enough running through DSP Parallax.

Mainly use it for metal, and downtuned projects.

Not too much of a fan of the neck wood, it's pretty dry and something with the texture of it, but it's a budget guitar and definitely worth your money despite the small little opinion nit picks.

great bang for the buck

Bought this to test the waters in the 6 string world. For the price the build quity is great and has decent pickups and electronics. Not disappointed with the sound I get from it.

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.

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.

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

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 :)

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.

Harley Benton B-650 Black Progressive Series

Perfect introduction for a 6 string bass.

Six strings seem too much for any bass player, but for someone who mostly plays guitar... its just the right number of strings.

I use this bass mostly for home recordings and in that it does the job pretty well.

Arrived in perfect order with no dings or blemishes. Neck was straight and required little effort to entonate.

Some crackling was audible when using the volume pot, but nothing that could not be easily fixed.

A good bass, but with some design flaws

I don't have it now, but it was a good bass. Very nice and versatile sound, but the neck was too heady while the body too light, and it easily drained the batteries.

Serious Value for money

well I took a chance on this one and boy did it pay of , if you search " metalmorningthoughts " on youtube you will find my overview vid and sound test and I stand by everything on there .

the sound is truly awesome with the ability to switch between both active and passive mode on the pickups plus the extensive eq giving a huge range and ability to hone your sound both live and in the studio , the playability is excellent and the neck is very smooth and well balanced on a whole .

my only negative come down to the pickup placement making hand position a touch awkward and the need for a higher quality bridge is a must unfortunately, but given the price these problems are negligible at best .

I would recommend this to anyone on a budget and say jump on it your in for a treat ;) .

Super for the price

I bought this bass, because I wanted a cheap six string for learning the c string and for modifying and upgrading.

Pros:

Looks great.

Playability was really good out of the box. I just adjusted truss rod and intonation and it's good to go on stage.

Battery case is really ergonomic, changing battery on bass has not been easier.

Neck is very comfortable.

Cons:

The sound of this bass is not as versatile as I expected. I play mostly jazz, bigband, pop music. This bass should be nice for modern rock or metal. For me it lacks warmth. I wish there was a switch to split pickups or something.

Nut looks really cheaply made and B string is a little too deep in it.

In conclusion it is an amazing bass for the price. If you want a perfect bass it's not for you, but I think changing the nut, pickups and electronics could yield and instrument comparable to high end basses. If I would loose or damage mine, I think I would buy another one just like this.

Unbeatable value for money!

A 6-string bass for 150Eur? It's gotta be a piece of crap , right?. WRONG! Good solid build. Nice design and not too heavy. The bass need a tiny bit of adjustment in the bridge for intonation but apart from that it played great right out of the box.

If you wanna get a 6-Sting bass without breaking the bank you could do a lot worse Harley Benton B-650.

6 stirng bass guitar for extremely cheap price....

After getting the 5 string fretless version of this bass I wanted to buy the 6 string fretted version to play some dream theater etc.. This price was very affordable for my curiosity. I really liked the active electronics on it. Picups sounds good to my ears. I tested this by on my Ampeg Pf50t and I liked the various tons I get with adjusting the active electronics on it... I think noone can buy any better 6 string guitar for this price. Only things I didn't like about this guitar were some cheap plastic hardwares on it (fro example, nut, screws...). Currently I am using the stock strings as I received this bass 5 days ago. After installing some high end strings on it I will like this bas more. I may update my feedback after I will do that.... I strongly recomend this bass for every bass player...

Decent introduction

I bought this bass recently as I fancied dabbling into the world of the 6 string.Packaging was good and I noticed no flaws in the item out of the box.The bass was properly intonated and the tuners agree. I couldn't find any dead spots nor bad fretwork. Right off, you notice the clarity of the notes throughout. Chords are fairly clear, but if you want versatility, you won't get it with the stock electronics. The weight is also nice for a 6 string bass-this is definitely on the light end!!

The action is also decent- you can get the strings pretty low before buzz if you like that kind of setup. The string spacing is slightly on the narrow side,but I?ve got small hands. Playing with a lower level Peavey this bass mostly seems worth the purchase.

Now to the two things that I noticed that weren`t to my liking:

1)the B string is a bit floppy-but truth be told I expected it to be.Outside of the very expensive 6 string basses you`ll have a job finding a perfect b string.I can live with it.

2)Slap & pop technique-the former isn`t as unclean as I expected considering the string spacing,but the latter is surprisingly difficult due to the length of the fretboard.You literally have room for a single finger on the high C string between the fretboard end and the neck pickup. More space should have been given accomodate more fingers.I think design and aesthetics came before playability here.

Resumé: a decent all black active 6 stringer that is great value for the money and also a good introduction to the 6 stringers.I would recommend it!