Harley Benton JB-75MN NA Vintage Series Reviews

Excellent bass

I was struck by the build quality-just an excellent level. The sound for its price is very good. Aesthetically very beautiful guitar. Many people write that the bass is heavy, I did not think so. We were pleased with perfectly rolled frets, precise milling of the neck pocket and brass saddles. There was a small scratch on the varnish, otherwise varnished perfectly without smudges. The fingerboard is uncoated a pleasant feeling from the wood.

Bass definitely recommend!!

Special thanks to the staff for their work! Quickly sent, the parcel arrived in 8 days.

Recommended

Feels so good and sounds as good. No complaints at all. For the price, this is a steal

Portuguese | English

Excelente baixo elétrico, a um preço bestial. Vem equipado com cordas roundwound. Não tem muito que se lhe diga, saiu da caixa pronto para tocar, apenas tive de afinar, não irei fazer um setup num futuro próximo. No geral, é um bom instrumento, acabamento clássico muito agradável. Por este preço, sentimos que ficámos a ganhar sem sombra de dúvida. Tenho apenas intenções de mudar as cordas para flatwounds. *UPDATE* já o uso há 1 ano e continuo inteiramente satisfeito, já toquei ao vivo, já gravei, já fiz tudo o que podia fazer, e o instrumento não desilude.

Great bass guitar at a great price. Comes with roundwound strings. There's not much to it, it came out of the box ready to play, just had to tune up, won't do a setup anytime soon. Just overall great bass, absolutely beautiful classic finish. And for that price, it feels like a bargain. Just gonna change to flatwound strings and that's it.*UPDATE* I've been using it for a year now and I'm still fullfilled with the bass, I've played live, I've recorded with it, I have done as much as I could with it, it hasn't let me down yet.

I Can't believe it.

I want to start this review by saying I came into purchasing this bass with pretty standard expectations. Kind of a "you get what you pay for" mentality. Well, you get WAY more than you pay for with this bass. My first ever bass was a squier affinity P-bass when I was 13 (i'm now 25) and it's been my only bass since about 4 or 5 months ago when I really started getting serious about learning bass. I got a $500 Yamaha active bass. I don't want to bash that bass because it's definitely a good quality bass but for $150 (give or take) for THIS bass I'm taking this bass ALL DAY EVERY DAY. I gotta say, I didn't expect this to be my #1 bass but it is. It sounds great and plays wonderfully. A big bonus was it came very well adjusted. Low action and what seems like brand new strings. Neck is kind of beefy but I like that since I'm tall and have very big hands. It's incredibly comfortable and smooth to play. Much better tones than I expected for the price! Has a weight to it which makes it feel really premium.

Nice cheap jazz bass

Great bass. Sounds great - no worse than my Japanese fender. I recommend for those who want high-quality jazz bass for little money!

Ideal bass on a budget

Having had mine for a week or so now I am more than happy with this bass.

I've played guitar for a long time now, this being my first bass guitar, and I couldn't be happier with it. It is very playable and all notes can be played with ease, the distance between the fingerboard and the strings being small and consistent along the entire length of the neck, which is much better than I expected to see at this price point.

Aesthetically, I really love the wood effect and the fretboard inlays look great too.

+ Small and consistent string-to-fretboard distance makes playing this bass easy

+ Great sound, easily tweaked with the controls on the front

+ Looks brilliant in natural wood style, and with a high level of finish throughout - very impressed at this price point.

- I tend to prefer an angled jack socket or a jack socket on the edge of the guitar, but this is being very picky and is a very minor negative point.

Can't go wrong with one of these.

This thing has some weight to it! Seemed well set up out of the box, the sound is good and it was easy to play. The tuners are beefy and hold the string tension well.

The only issue I had was a tiny split in the finish due to a screw being over tightened on the volume & selection plate area from the factory. Doesn't affect the playability of the guitar though.

I bought it because I'm not a big bass player, but wanted something to use in a mix. This definitely gives me that.

For the price it’s very good

My only complain is that using a single pickup the sound is very thin . Usually I use both and reduce the volume of the bridge or neck pickup by 20% max.

Also I find it heavy , but the build quality is ok and way better for the money.

It sounds good , it plays well , it seems durable and costs little .

Highly recommend !

Solid bass... very heavy though!

I am a bit of a budget guitar/bass addict. The most expensive thing I have in my arsenal is a hagstrom HB8. This is up there in the weight category so it isn't too much of a problem that the JB-75 weighs the same as my car. I think this is an excellent, versatile bass. I have to admit that I am becoming very fond of Harley Benton guitars and this is the 4th addition to my collection.

My band packed in earlier this year but it was to be my primary 4-string for that. But now I am on my own I use is primarily for my home studio.

SOUND: It fit with the rock/blues we were playing seamlessly and has the versatility to cover most bases being a jazz copy. The pickups are nice and hot, the heft of the body ensures a nice full tone, and I've had zero problems with the neck like I had with the bass vi copy (sharp fret edges needed filing) and the strat copy I bought recently (same issue with the fret edges, and one fret above the 12th was raised slightly but was remedied with a bit of filing). So no buzz and the intonation is spot on.

BODY/FINISH/BUILD QUALITY: it looks gorgeous. The finish is around what you might expect for a mid range bass and much better than you would expect at this price point. There's no glaring problems with the body, the plastic covers are all well cut and everything is well secured. The jack is solid and the pots feel good, no crackling/buzzing to speak of which is more than can be said for the hagstrom... The tuners are the only real let down, but they work. There's a lot of play in them so they would be worth upgrading at some point, if I was to get a lot of use out of the bass, but as I am only using it in the studio then there's not much point.

CONCLUSION: For a gigging musician this might be a little heavy for a lot of stage use. It's akin to having about 7 real jazz basses hanging around your neck. For occasional use or use in the studio where you can sit in a nice comfy chair it is an absolute belter. I'd recommend it to anyone looking for something to start out on as it wont break the bank but you arent buying rubbish. I personally think it is an excellent bass and would thoroughly recommend it.

This bass feels more expensive

This bass is definitely worth the money. It feels like a way more expensive bass.

I've been using to track demos and it does a great job. Even the pickups sound pretty good, they don't have that weird standing frequency that other pickups on low priced basses can have.

The pots are very clean and the jack seem rock solid. There is great range of tone from it.

The only downside to this bass is that the weight is a bit on the heavy side.

Highly recommended.

Good Enough to Gig with Professionally

To begin with, I initially bought this as a back up for my Fender Geddy Lee Jazz bass.

My first thoughts were, how can they sell a natural '75 style jazz bass with D'addario strings, Canadian maple neck and, in my case, a two piece maple body with a join so good I thought that it was a 1 piece body for this price?

To put things into perspective, I use a Radial Tonebone for tone shaping and DI which cost twice as much as this bass did.

Out of the box I found that the fit & finish was excellent for a bass at this price point. I have found over the years that the main difference between a low priced bass and a high priced one is the attention to detail in the finishing process. I had a couple of frets that were protruding ever so slightly as can happen with new basses many times the price of this one but less than 5 minutes with a small file and it was sorted. The tuners hold the bass in tune and the bridge is the usual familiar style but with brass saddles which is a nice touch. The body has what I imagine will be a tough poly finish and I can find no flaws in that either.

The neck is very well made with a very smooth satin finish and I actually prefer it to the very thin neck on my Geddy. It's still slim but feels a bit more substantial front to back.

The bass balances well on a strap and is very comfortable to play for long periods (90 minute to 2 hour sets at a time)

I play in a wedding/function band entertaining anywhere from 200 to 2,000 people and made the mistake of using this at a gig shortly after buying it. The mistake being that I enjoyed playing it so much that my Fender Jazz bass is now up for sale and I will be using this bass for all future gigs.

I see ads all the time where people have bought a cheap bass and sell them on due to having upgraded to a more expensive "name brand" bass. Over the past 30 years I have owned and played over 140 basses from one that I got for nothing to some costing over £3,000. This bass is good enough to use professionally and the only change to this bass I have made is that I prefer D'addario EXL165 strings over the EXL170s fitted to this one as I like a heavier A & E string.

I get the impression that this won't be my last Harley Benton branded bass if this one is indicative of the quality.

Good but...

This bass is justified for its price...

The stock pickups sounded muddy and the neck felt very strange to my hands...The frets were sticking out a lot and they had a cheap feeling, but again for that price its ok.

Also very very heavy, so keep that in mind if you are planning to gig for several hours...

Great sound :) very happy with product

pros : looks, quality, sound

cons: little bit heavy then other bass guitars, not for girls ;)

Review after 6 months of use (*2 years)

Excellent J-bass for its price. Price-to-quality ratio is top. Plays great. Has the feel and sound of a jazz bass, which is encouraging. Looks good. Great first, beginner or part-time bass. Would recommend it to all. Downside is its weight, it's a very heavy bass.

One of the frets popped out after 4-5 months of intensive use, probably due to the onset of winter. Since this is known to happen to all basses, including expensive ones, I don't hold it against this model. Very worthy purchase.

EDIT 1: Several frets are popping up a little after 6 months of active playing. I like to play with low action and this is unfortunately a problem, as I am getting more frets buzzing every week. Excellent bass but the fretwork is a cause for worry.

*EDIT 2: The wood of the body seems to be deforming slightly, so much so that there is friction when turning the potentiometer knobs. In hindsight, great value for beginners, probably unreliable as a main instrument for too long.

I was surprised by how good the bass sounded. I was used to my P-bass and thought that I would give this J-bass a try. The pickups have plenty of punch and the fret work on the neck was quite good. Those were the pros, the only cons so far is the weight. Standing all night could leave a person a little bent, super bass for the price!

A stunning instrument

Straight out of the box this was pretty much perfect. I honestly cannot fault it - a beautiful instrument. One thing I really like is the neck. Instead of a heavy gloss, it is a smooth satin (as is the freatboard, which is rare for a maple board as they are usually glossy).

Best buy for value!!

Read a lot of reviews about this bass before i pulled the trigger. A lot of people saying good thibgs about it but most feedback was its heavy, needs frets dressed but overall a good buy.

When i received the bass, as i thought with being sent a long distance it would of taken a minor knock or two in transit, so got a friend to give it a set up.

After getting it back i can truly say how blown away i am by this bass. For such a small amount of money you get something you would see/have in the price brackets easily double what you pay for this. The frets i feel are fine no sharpe edges! May have been lucky i guess and with the weight its a little on the heavy side but nothing to worry about! The finish on it is amazing and the grain is a thing of beauty. The neck is nice and smooth and lovely to play. May put some beefier pick ups in it over time but theres no rush for that.

Cannot recommend this enough to people if you are wanting something decent to learn on or as a second/project bass.

Good bass

For a beginner, like me, the bass is just perfect, I really like it s sound and I think the only little con to this is that it s quite hard, but that s not really so important.

Would recomand 10/10

cheap price good quality

Looks great, feels great. Had read good things about the harley benton products lately, and when you buy a product on this price range QA might not be the best so it's more likely to get a black sheep, but this was not my case. Feels comfortable and smooth, looks good, barely any set up needed when it arrived, frets were perfectly cut.

Only complain I could have is that I feel that the sound is missing a bit of punch, which could be due to the amplifier (from the same brand) or the pickups. But this is something expected when buying budget instruments.

I would also recommend this instrument for someone looking to try new upgrades. base product has the looks and the potentials and I could bet that if you cover the logo nobody would guess it's not some more expensive fender after some upgrades

Unreal instrument

I got this as a way to get into playing a new instrument. I am absolutely blown away at the quality of this piece. It needed very little set up out of the box, and was almost in tune right away. Considering that it traveled overseas to get to me, this seems absolutely astounding.

I mostly play by myself at this point and this instrument is absolutely perfect for this purpose. It is incredibly clear and needed almost no extra knowledge of the instrument to get it in playing condition. I am honestly excited to show this to my friends, as I don't think they'd believe the quality without seeing it in person.

This bass has an astounding sustain probably due in part to its slightly above average weight. It can cover a variety of different sounds and looks fantastic.