Harley Benton JB-75MN NA Vintage Series 5-stars Reviews

Excellent

There is nothing I can fault with this bass guitar, particularly where price is considered. It really is an excellent instrument, perfectly usable in any scenario where a jazz bass is required. Pickups are excellent, punchy and provide for a wide variety of sounds. Tuners smooth. Nice, fat satin neck, plays a dream, quick to play. Volume and tone controls fluid and linear. Really, I would be happy to play this anywhere. Astounding value.

Great Bass - Amazing Value

This bass is amazing value - 3 piece ash body is well joined (roughly proportioned 15%, 70%, 15%) joins are virtually seamless. All frets are level and well fitted, action out the box is near perfect. Pickups sound great - very fat when needed with lots of top end on hand as well. Tuners are great - work very well. Fret makers are applied well as is painted neck binding. Every inch as good as the Squier VM equivalent for a third of the price.

Great bass for "fiddlers"

Really wanted a 4 string fretted to go with my Warwick Rockbass fretless. J bass or P bass? Why not both!

Saw the HB basses and read the reviews. So given the money back guarantee I thought why not.

I had played a £300 Vintage V74 bass so knew what to expect (that bass was dreadfully setup and the output socket imploded when I tried to plug it in).

This HB was completely different. Solidly built (1, possibly 2, piece ash body), good maple neck with skunk stripe and maple fretboard. No major complaints. The machine heads work but there was a little wiggle room for retuning, but not bad if your in one tuning for a while. Nut was a little high, the relief was a little too much, the action was a little too high. Having said that much better than that Vintage bass. The pickups are Wilkinson (cloth covered wire, looks vintage). Only problem with the pickups are that the pole pieces are a little proud of the cover and I tend to "dig in" a bit when fingering and with a low action I was shaving the tips of my fingers off on the pole pieces. Nice bridge with brass saddles. After a setup including setting the truss rod and action the bass was perfectly playable. Could probably do with a fret level, crown and polish to get super low action and the nut cut down a fraction more, but nothing wrong for what you pay. (I would think most basses from the far East would all need this treatment, not just the sub £100 ones!)

Would I upgrade it? Probably not, the bridge is OK (I like the rapid loading Warwick bridge, but it's cheaper to buy a second bass to set up for flats or drop tuning than buying an expensive top loading bridge). The pick ups are fine (may put in a DPDT volume for series pickups. It's only the machine heads that could do with an upgrade if you slam the bass around a lot and knock it out of tune.

truly excellent

I am a guitarist of 20 odd years and have a number of guitars from the maker this bass is based on (no pun intended), and have to say this is a truly excellent bass and not just for the money. There is a great range of tones to be had, the playability is top notch (after a small tweak of the saddles), comes fitted with decent d'addario strings, and on a more shallow note it looks beautiful.

I am extremely happy with my purchase and glad I chose this over any of the other basses in my price range, which was up to 3 times what I paid for this beauty.

Extremely Happy Customer :) :) :)

After having some bass guitars in the £600 mark I was overwhelmed at the build quality of this guitar. Its simply stunning to look at, it plays fantastically out of the box. The price is fantastic for what you get. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this guitar to anyone! I got the package with the Hartke amp and I very very pleased with both! Excellent thank you!

Great bass for the money

Keep it short. For the money its great. Well made, good sound and looks sweet.

Harley Benton JB-75NA Vintage - Cool!

This guitar is very good, sound great, very usefully!

Amazing value for your money.

With a solid Ash body and very high quality hardware and pick-ups you won't be disappointed with these basses. No sharp edges or neck issues and very playable out of the box. I've just ordered the PB-50 for a project and look forward to recieveing this too.

Great value for money, but has merit beyond being cheap!

I bought this thinking that I would have to do a bit of fretwork and replace some hardware and electronics, but I can't see that being an issue for a while yet!

The bass looks great, with the finish being easily comparable to £500 basses and even the wood selection for the body looks well thought out. The neck is pretty chunky, but in a traditional style, rather than feeling cheap and the satin finish on the neck was a real bonus (I usually sand down lacquer on necks, but this isn't needed!).

The set up out the box was great, just needed tuning up. The intonation is nearly spot on, but I'll sort it once I need to change the strings - which are d'addario ones by the way, nice touch.

The electronics are all sound and wired up well (usually a gripe of mine!). I have played it through a PA and bass head and the range of tone is what you would expect from a mid range fender model. The pickups are wilkinson, so have a great tone, but I probably will spend a little more on a decent set, but I'll see how they sound during a gig first.

The hardware looks like it should stand the test of time, but it is a bit early to tell yet - but again, for the price, it is fantastic.

All in all, great looks, build quality and hardware. I wish I had this model when I stsarted out playing bass as I'm sure my playing would have improved much quicker. I don't want to put it down!

Hmmm...Maple

Ah, I love a nice maple fretboard. Slight tonal difference, but mainly it just looks cool! I like the black inlay contrast.

Tuners were great, the pickups are wilkinsons, so naturally they just sound great from the get go, no tweaking needed.

The setup on this item was excellent and like the bonus of decent strings on it.

Body is heavy, it is a solid lump of ash, but has such lovely grain, wonderful instrument.