Harley Benton MB-5 SB Deluxe Series Reviews

My first 5-string. Love it!

This is my first 5-string after owning two 4-strings. Love it. The only thing is, that the E string is kinda dead sounding, and the strings are close together. It will take some time though since the bass arrived just yesterday. I love the sound of it. The two volumes really make up a good sound. I would recommend!

Update: Oh my god! This bass is so damn versatile! I’ve used it for show choir competitions, general practice, and making songs with FL Studio 20. This bass can be dynamic when you want it to be. I had to change the rating because I just love this bass.

You will not be disappointed

You cant get any better bass for the price.

For me it is perfect

I wanted to have a 5 string bass to record some deep parts in my hobby studio and I didn't want to bust the bank.

Pros:

- for me, it should be a one-trick-pony. I would like to have rumbling, growling deep bass for some metal and rock covers that I do for fun. This bass delivers exactly that

- the finish is nice

- frets are ok, hardware is good

- the bass plays and sounds nice overall and hardware seems to be OK for the job

Cons:

- really big, chunky neck, I will need some time to get used to it

- the nut is somewhat sharp, I accidentally hit it with my left hand and it surprised me that it hurt

- one volume knob seems to be dead, so I have to fix that

I would recommend this bass to anyone who wants a cheap 5 string bass. Quality-wise it is around the same level where my previous Squier bass was.

Great sound and great price

This bass sounds beautiful. Both lines on the pickups can be turned up and down making a large variation of tone possible. The location of the pickups give the punchy bass sound that I love.

Recommended if you want to try 5 string, but not actually play it

I must say I was very disappointed with this Harley Benton bass. Sure, it is EXTREMELY cheap, but I had cheap Harley Benton basses before and they were very good. This one unfortunately is not, it is very poorly constructed, I had to rescrew some of the knobs as they were either not turning, or falling out. The sound is very metallic, there is almost no warmness of a bass in there. The neck and fretboard feel very rough.

The only pros would be the price, the 5 strings and the overall MusicMan imitation look. Apart from extreme beginners, I certainly do not recommend this bass even for just playing around (which is why I bought it, but got sick of it the moment I picked it up).

Great for the price, but with some issues in quality

Pretty good once I received it (there was a bit of a mix-up with delivery causing a delay), but there are a couple of issues preventing me from giving full marks.

One is, the strap button on the bottom of the bass came broken/loose- it looks as if the bass had been dropped on the button at some point, and the finish is cracked and the button looks like it will come out sooner or later. So, I cannot really use a strap on it until I get that fixed, which is a disappointment.

The second issue is that the frets, especially near the body, might be sanded down a bit more- they are a bit sharp, although less so at the lower side of the neck than at the upper side.

This being said, I believe that the value of the instrument is still good for the price. Other than the issues mentioned above, the build quality is good and the bass feels pretty solid.

Sound is very good and punchy (after I switched out the strings for some Ernie Ball slinky roundwounds- the original ones were a bit coarse) and is a pretty good approximation of the stingray sound, although I have not yet hooked it up to a full amp/rig, just a small practice amp.

Hard to find better 5 string bass for this price!

I'm a guitar player and home studio guy and I needed a bass guitar for recording and this guitar is awesome for it's price. It sounds good, it's comfortable to play and it looks good. I was really surprised by the building quality of this 130 euro bass. It's totally worth it, if you are starting out, for a backup bass, or if you are just a guitarist who needs a bass to track his demos!

Incredible!

I play on this bass more than three months and I can say definitely - this is a really good bass.

I received the package in ten days / I live in the Canary Islands /

What a pleasant surprise, the bass was even tuned. I immediately changed the strings and I went to my friend who have 80's "Ibanez Musician".

Tested the both instruments with different amplifiers, recorded several slices directly without compression or EQ and then compared the records.

Of course Ibanez has a pure balanced sound, though the price is about 10x. But what surprised me "Harley Bentone" enter more easily into the mix :-o

A few days later we played live in a small club /150 persons/ Many of you probably will not agree with me, but there I felt the same "Ibanez" jutted somehow insolently and I wasn't happy at all.

I have a similar experience with a very expensive keyboards. / I'm a producer, also playing live keyboards and bass, sometimes guitar /

For those who think that a good instrument must be expensive one, I would say - it depends.

The expensive instruments requiring high-quality recording studio or a big stage very good sound engineers.

If you're a bassist who plays in a bar, hotel, a festival and use midrange devices - "Harley Bentone" is a bass for you. You will not find better, even for more money.

Highly recommend. Thank you Tomann.

The Best Entry level 5 string you can get for its price

I bought this bass as a replacement - leave at the studio bass, so that I don't put strain on my recording bases traveling every day on a motorcycle for band practice sessions.

Construction:

It feels like a very solid instrument, and that's probably because it is one. I'm genuinely having second thoughts about leaving it at the studio every day.

Sound:

It sounds just about right at its price range and passive pickups.Not extremely Good but not bad either, no surprises here.

The tone/pickup controls provide a variety of tones but mostly in extreme settings, in between pot position sound variations are hard to distinguish.

Overall Quality:

+Very solid construction / parts

+A great 2nd / practice / replacement V string bass

+A very good value for money buy for beginners who want to start playing a V string, or newcomers who want to jump right into it.

- Sound not what I thought it will be, yet not bad

I wonder how good it will sound with active pickups!