Harley Benton BA500H Review

[Jack]

Hey guys, new amp day!


So I'm waiting on Gallien Krueger to pull their finger out and release the MB Fusion 800 but who knows when that will be out and I've got my order in with Alex for a Midget+Compact but that's an 8 week wait. So the long and short of it that I was ampless. Whilst trawling the classifieds and amps forums here to find a bargain that I could use in the meantime I found the thread about the HB heads. For those of you who don't know the Ibanez Promethean amps are built by a company called Beta Alvin, who make an (almost) identical amp under a few different names including their own, RedSub and Harley Benton which is thomann.de's own brand. First, to the main reason I bought this amp and let's make now bones about it: it's £175. Actually it's currently £175 (€219) but when I got mine it was €189 or £151. [url="http://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_ba500h.htm"]Product page![/url]



BONUS: Thomann do free delivery on all orders over €199 but as my €189 head had a €10 delivery charge I decided to get 36 of my favourite picks in order to qualify for the free delivery, ended up paying €1.55 for 36 dunlop picks!

Kinda stings that they've put an extra £25 or so on, but when you consider this a 500W micro(ish) head with a variety of tone options plus features such as DI/ aux in etc it's a heck of deal. Even more so if it is anything like the well-reviewed Promethean.

The amp arrived very well packed in a double box:





Here we see the features: active/passive input; gain; low (with bass boost); high (with bright); switchable eq; colour; contour and master with a mute. The colour and contour are both switchable in/out. Contour is a typical, rubbish mid scoop and colour is something a bit like the Markbass VLF or whatever it is, basicially it progressively rolls back the HF content at lower and lower frequencies. Something that I thought I saw in the specs and that I can confirm is that the control is 'flat' at fully clockwise, what would be full-volume if it were a volume control. Odd, but there you go. Also we have a headphones out and an aux in. For those of you like me who are dubious about the preamp and want to use an external box I have two pieces of good news. Firstly, the aux in is controlled by the master volume so external preamps such as a Sansamp or my MXR M80 work perfectly. Secondly, the preamp in the amp itself is actually alright. I neglected to take a picture of the back but there is the XLR out with a ground lift, 1/4" tuner and footswitch jacks, a fan, 1 speakon and 1 1/4" speaker outputs and the power switch.

The sound is pretty middy, maybe even bass-light. This is coming from someone who is a GK fan and likes a very mid-present sound. So if I think this, somebody who is used to an Ampeg type sound would probably find it [i]extremely[/i] bass-light. Having said that, liberal clockwise modification of the 'low' control sort this out nicely. I've actually been playing it (through my GK Neo 1x12") pretty much flat but with the bass boost button clicked in. The unit feels well made generally but I do have a few niggles. For one some of the buttons aren't on straight. The low knob on mine for example is at about 12:10 when in the centre detent and should be pointing to exactly 12:00. I guess I could probably fix this but it is something that you just shouldn't have to. It's also been said that the power connector is pretty flimsy and this is something I've noticed too. The whole thing wobbles about pretty badly and even though the power cable has a snug fit it's actually the whole assembly that's loose. There are photos in the main thread showing how it's clipped in and basically it's pretty weak. Hasn't broken yet though! As a rather odd aside, so far as I can tell from the manual and by listening, both the high knob and the top slider on the graphic eq boost at 10kHz, which seems redundant. . . .

As for volume, it easily outpaces my GK Neo 1x12" and I fully endorse and believe the stated power claims of 500W at 4ohms.

Generally I do really like this amp. Yes, I wish it had a separate level control for the DI and yes I wish it was slightly better made. But it sounds just fine, above average even. And I'll say it again: it's damed cheap! Even at the newer higher price it's an absolute steal. The same price range on Thomann shows the Behringer head (which has the downside of being awful), the Fender Rumble (only 150W) and the GK MB-200. Now I must admit I was tempted to get the GK, really. I think I might have done had the HB been closer to the GK price-wise as it is now. Having said that though, the HB is more powerful, more fully-featured and still a good £25 cheaper.

I'd love to put it side-by-side with the Promethean (calling WaterofTyne?) but I'm pretty satisfied even if it turns out to be nothing like it. That GK keeps taunting me though, but I know it'll sit unused when I get the MB Fusion . . . . . .

[hamfist]

Nice review. It certainly seems to have a good feature set, especially for the price. But for those of us who know nothing about the promethean ... is this a "clean" amp, or will it move into OD/distortion if required ? If so, what's that like ?

[Dood]

FYI: The GK MB800 fusion is set to be out first quarter 2013, but probably better to expect that early second quarter.

[Jack]

Oh really? I've heard 'Augustish' and Q3 2012. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.


Hamfist, it's a clean amp. Actually I've been meaning to append my review a bit. It's very polite, not bass-shy like I'd thought, just very very clean and quite.........well, bland really.

[thebuckets]

now the price has gone up to 175 you might be better getting the combo at 230 just a little more gives you an amp for a small gig or home practice

[Jack]

So a few more thoughts after a proper kicking at rehearsal and just some more use in general. I purposefully didn't say a great deal about the sound at first because these things can be very difficult to pin down properly until you're used to the amp.

I do like this amp, a lot. As part of my temporary rig I picked up a Hartke Transporter 410 from the classifieds here. This rig has been to rehearsals a few times but no gigging I'm afraid. With the 8 ohm cabinet I'm getting around 300W and I certainly believe it. There's plenty of volume but the volume knob does hit the top volume pretty early in it's travel, a cheap trick to make the amp seem louder yes but hey, it IS cheap.

The amp really roars with my P, the standard full-bodied Fender type sound. There's a full bottom which you don't get at lower volumes (I initially described the amp as bass-shy) but definitely makes itself heard the louder you go. It's not quite as powerful (sound, not volume) as I'd like with my Stingray, I'd like a bit more of the GK growl that I'm used to with that guitar. Whilst the amp isn't as refined as some of the brands I'm about to name, the sound is certainly in the ballpark of something like the Genz shuttle or EA type stuff. It's polite and fairly neutral. This took me a while to get used to after being a long-time GK user (and Ashdown before that). I fully admit I'm the kind of guy that likes an amp to really influence the sound of an instrument and this amp doesn't really. The eq options on the amp are a bit hit and miss. The bass boost button is fantastic for that bit of cushion that sometimes goes amiss at lower volumes but I'm not getting along with the graphic at all really. The sliders just seem to do whatever they feel like doing, I can't correlate the shape of them with what's actually going on in terms of the sound. They should be pretty powerful at +.-12dB but they seem ineffective and just a bit pants to be fair. The colour control, by contrast, is great. As I understand it it cuts off the highs as progressively lower points. In operation, I think of it as a passive tone control and for that it works very nicely. hifi to more old-school in one control. It's not noticeable in the first 1/4 of it's travel and that's either by design or more likely because I'm not really much for the upper echelons of treble, maybe this would be more noticeable if I had a tweeter in the cab. HB do seem to suggest using it to tame tweeter hiss on their cabinets, so it must start pretty high in ranges that I just don't produce. The contour is rubbish, but aren't they all?

All the ins and outs are very high quality in terms of sound. There are a few that feel physically weak but the sound cannot be faulted. As an aside, I don't think that the internal preamp has a great deal of gain. I can get a fair bit more volume using my MXR M80 into the aux in than just using the amp itself. I wonder what a 'proper' pre like a Grace would do to it?

In short, the amp is easily on a par with products such as the Ashdown MAG, GK Backline and the like. It's also the only one in that kind of range I can think of with a fairly 'new' sound and in such a small format. Don't be put off by the brand, and definitely be turned on by the value for money.

Me personally, I'm debating whether or not just to swap it for the MB Fusion. Can't be bothered waiting till the 'late 2012' I was recently quoted by a GK rep.

Edited June 2, 2012 by Jack

[guitarjong]

Apologies for restarting an oldish tread, but thanks for that review. Certainly interesting reading.

What I want to know, if Jackstill had the amp, is how I is holding out now a far you still happy with it?

[Jack]

Hey GuitarJong, unfortunately I sold it but it was to a basschater, it may still be kicking around on here.

[gapiro]

And apologies for replying to an old thread... I was trying to find the datasheet for i....

Jack sold it to me... and currently i'm using it to power a barefaced midget and have been pretty much non stop for the last 2 years.

It is a great little amp and has held its own at everything I 've thrown at it.