Harley Benton MB-5 SB Deluxe Series Reviews

Utterly fantastic value!

Can't get over how much bass you get for so little money. I can't even buy the blank wood to make one at this price, let alone the parts.

If you're hovering over buying one, just do it.

Just to put it into perspective, I sold a £2500 Yamaha and thought I'd buy this as a stop gap whilst choosing a new bass. I don't think I'll bother now, I'll just keep this and pocket the difference!

Neck is lovely, paint is flawless. Hardware a little cheap looking, but does the job. Could probably upgrade the tuners at some point, but no rush, they seem to hold tune.

Pickup does the job, easy enough to swap out if you fancy something more boutique though.

Perfect for modding too - I've routed the back so I can install a battery box and Stingray preamp. Not that there's anything wrong with the sound as-is, just figured it would make it a little more authentic.

Looks Good

Not the greatest pickup, but certainly looks the part. Plays well enough with some setting up.

GREAT BASS

This bass, once I put La Bella strings on has a GREAT SOUND for any genre.

I have also de-fretted mine which suits me better. Best budget bass on the market, well finished, tuners,bridge and pick-up fine.

Its a stingray without the price tag!

By far my favorite bass I own. Stock pickup isn't bad either! Throw in a pre amp and your golden!

Bang for your Buck

Construction, paint, finish is excellent, feels solid. B-string is good, not flabby at all.

First weak point : the tuners. 2nd : the electronics are noisy , pots are scratchy.

Not a lot of sound difference between the two coils.

Needs a setup (truss rod, intonation , string height), sadly not out-of-the-box ready to play(at least this one). Pickup will be good with new electronics, copper tape, etc.

With minimal extra $$ this will be a great instrument.

Easily worth 5 times the price

Great well balanced bass, playable right out of the box. Great fit and finish, and amazing tone!!! I couldn’t be more pleased.

Big Bang for your buck

The bass arrived well packaged with a lead and 2 Allen keys.

After a quick tune up and slight lowering of the action, the bass was ready to go. Even the intonation is correct. Really nice to play. Well balanced and a great tone.

Crazy value for money. Can’t believe a bass can be this good at that price.

Harley Benton

The parcel arrived in 10 days. The package was not damaged.

This bass has normal sound for a small budget. I could recommend this bass for beginners, but... This instrument has a poor detuning and cannot be tuned. So it will have to be carried to the workshop. Keep this in mind when purchasing this bass

Worth the 4 month wait?

I ordered this bass in the first days of June and it was postponed 3 times, each time for anywhere from weeks to months. I finally got it at the end of September. It is Beautiful. But, it was NOT set up properly. Mis-aligned string/neck. Over 100/1000's string height at the 12th fret with a MASSIVE bow in the neck. Intonation was NOT EVEN CLOSE!!! Nut at the E string is cut wrong!! It took hours of set up to get this correct and playable. Now it plays good and sounds good. Yes,... it is worth the money, as long as you know how to set up a guitar! Otherwise it would have cost me $100 setup fee. Worth the wait I did? Ehhh. There isn't anything else out there like this, so.......!?

A 5 string bass for silly money

It looks like an instrument costing 5 or 6 times as much.

For it's size it doesn't hang round your neck like a paving slab being nicely balanced. The sound is excellent tho obviously governed by the equipment it is plugged through.

Nice build quality and finish, but...

For the price, this is a perfectly adequate bass. The neck feels great and the paint and finish are surprisingly excellent. The sound, however, leaves a lot to be desired. The pickup lacks depth and clarity, and if either one of the coils is soloed, there is tremendous single-coil hum. It would be worth spending $30-$40 more for a better pickup and electronics.

Wow!!!

For the price this bass is great! fit and finish is A+! Paint is flawless! no sprouts on the frets,plays fine out of the box, no set up needed.Painted head stock adds a nice touch, don't know why I waited so long to get a fiver, all-around a great bass.

Hard to imagine a better deal. REALLY.

I bought this bass because I've had a MM style bass in the past and I liked it. I needed a bass for a home studio recording. This is my 3rd HB instrument, so to be honest I was rather expecting some frustrations and a bass that will be waiting as a DIY upgrade kind of thing. My main concern was fretwork, I was already planning to buy some better pickup as well. But ... let me tell you, soon as I put my hands on it I was amazed by the fact, that frets were smooth and nice! Perfect finish and nothing to complain about quality and look - wise! In this price range i have not seen ANYTHING BETTER so far. I did not have to adjust the rod, nor string height, i tuned it and the bass was ready to be plugged. The sound blew me away. It sounds MUCH better than the bass I mentioned before, that was active and almost 3x more expensive ! At some point I even thought that I will think twice before any upgrade, because I don't want to loose what I have now. Sure, low mids could be tighter and more defined, but all the rest - I couldn't actually ask for more. I will put some strings of my choice and we will see. Guys, this is an amazing bass, and HB made a huge improvement, thumbs up! I am not going to get rid of this bass any time soon. I feel like I won some kind of lottery! 4 stars only because 5 would maybe not be fair with top end instruments or instruments I never had a chance to compare this one with. MB-5 SB Deluxe is my personal 5 star bass at this point, and I had an Ibanez 605 before and believe me or not, I would not change it back.

Stingray sound at 1/8th the price

After watching reviews on this I decided to get one

(for the price) I wasn't expecting much. but to my surprise a very solid giggable bass out the box. I was concerned this was a passive bass and had no preamp (doesn't need one) let me tell you this bass has so many tone prints and passive I'm overwhelmed and happy I bought it. Yes,i would recommend it. Im a professionalisms bassist and own 17 basses that cost so much more but I gig the hell out of this bass. Batteries? no worries its passive (I can't tell cause it reminds me of a Ray)

with the split coil pickup I can get a pbass,jazz,and musicman tone. It looks beautiful.nice neck, frets are leveled and no sharp edges. No flaws in the paint, neck joint is tight as a clams butt lol. bridge and tuners are ok, no neck dive. My only gripe is that there is no truss-rod wheel at the base of the neck, which is not that big of a deal.

Good sounding Bass!!

This is just a nice experience.

Arrived very soon (4/5 days), setup was already good...i made only some fine adjustments and changed the stock strings.

The bass is really good, feels good on my hands and sounds awesome considering the price.

I do recommend this instrument, you can't go wrong with it.

I made a test video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtHz5QovvMU

An ok introduction to 5-strings

I bought this bass mainly for home studio use (I was done downtuning a 4-string) and am definitely not disappointed.

The MB-5 offers a decent, low barrier introduction to 5-string basses. The neck, though quite thick, fits nicely in my slightly-larger-than-average hands, and the contour on the body is placed perfectly to avoid getting in the way or excessive friction against the arm. The MM-style pickup and the separate volumes for each coil offer enough tonal variety for my uses, and the pickup itself sounds good with good strings. Tuning stability is fine. Out-of-the-box this bass does however require a setup in order to eliminate string buzz and correct intonation. That being said, for 130e + shipping this is pretty much the best bass I've played in that price range.

TL;DR:

Pros:

- Nice neck for larger hands

- Separate volume-pots for the 2 coils of the pickup

- Good, comfortable design

- Good tuning stability

Cons:

- Requires setup

- Factory strings aren't great

- Wood is what you'd expect for 130e

Amazing bass

From when I first saw it in person I fell in love with the look of it. The finish is amazing and the matching headstock adds so much professionalism to the look of it.

Soundwise it sounds really good, with the split-coil humbucker I can make a variety of different sounds by changing the volume of both coils, and the tone pot adds even more versatility to this instrument.

The pickups are passable and will work well in any recording session, they are passive pickups so they will need more gain and will sound less full in my experience anyway. But at least you wont need to worry about buying 9v batteries

The only downside I have to this instrument is that there were a few frets that needed some work and the action needed a bit of an adjustment, but that it the case for most new guitars/ basses.

I do like the addition of an alan key case with alan keys to adjust the truss rod and the saddles, along with a guitar cable.

Overall this bass is a must have for intermediate bass players and people who want to dip into the world of 5 strings and for a project template to work on. Like changing pickups etc.

very good 5 strings bass in this price!!great tone and nice sound.

A bit of fret buzzing on low B string

The low b string was buzzing on most frets but a quick adjustment to the action and that was fixed up. Good sound and feel for the price.

great mid range bass for the money

The bass is great the sound of the bass is great, neck is a bit wide,plastic on the pickup is already burst, finish and other staf is ok.

If you compare this bass to the g&l tribute l2500 this HB is better. For the money you pay can't buy better bass. Before this bass arrived I'm thinking of changing tuner, pickup and bridge but there is no need you will spend more money for not better tone and

playability. Playing it thru KEMPER and sound amazing.