stewblack

Good shout

I'm sorry. Always remember the above is only my opinion. You might hate it 😬

Sound samples

Anyway, the only thing that matters to me is it looks, sounds and plays like a dream. Others are welcome to disagree but I love it. Well done Thomann, well done.

That's different from the fakers I have.

This has been the subject of much discussion over on another thread so I thought I'd do a straight up review here and keep the controversy over there. Firstly another win for Thomann. Ordered on a whim last week and it arrived Christmas eve - given all the chaos in the postal system this time of year I was very impressed. Why a Harley? Well, I bought a HB Jazz from @yorks5stringer at last years SW Bash. It was inexpensive, I was considering a Jazz anyway, so this seemed a good way to suck and see. I was amazed by how good it was - and still is. Great sound, solid build quality, I couldn't believe the quality in fact. I have subsequently bought 'proper' Jazzes but at heart I guess I'm mainly a P-Bass kind of guy. Interestingly, while the HB is still with me, the more illustrious instruments have long since gone. So I know from real life experience these are serious instruments and not starter basses or toys. The jazz is also heavy and very good in close combat when playing rougher pubs. I loved the look of this bass, immediately. I knew I wanted it. It had a whiff of Rickenbacker about it but was definitely not a copy, it just appealed to me. The cherry burst is lovely. I searched for a fault, any flaw when it arrived and found only one. For some bizzare reason there is one Allen bolt in the bridge requiring a different size key from the others. Mildly irritating but not an issue. The action goes crazy low, I had actually to raise it up a little. This I accomplished with ease. It came strung with bright, light, rounds a little zingy for my taste but perfectly playable. The pick ups deliver a nice warm punch at the neck and a clean but not weak sound at the bridge. I don't know about you but what makes or breaks a bass for me is the neck and the balance. Can't stand neck dive and I love a really playable neck. Don't care if its slim or chunky just has to work for me. This is brilliant on both counts. Slim and fast, I gigged it today and it was like I'd been playing it all my life. So comfortable, so nicely balanced too. Band mates loved it, musicians in the audience loved it and I loved it. I hear the intonation is awkward to set on these. Can't comment as the intonation was perfect when it arrived. Tuners are firm, responsive and stayed in tune all day. Tone Controls responded well (I use my tone and volume a fair bit live).The bass is surprisingly small, here it is up against a CB Which is weedy and poorly made by comparison (but it looks great). I am so happy with this, always a gamble to buy without trying but this is going to see some work, no question.

Ha ha, no but I often receive small packages and wonder what the hell I've bought now .

I have a ChickenBacker as well as this Harley Benton and I can absolutely assure you the hardware is not the same. Maybe because this isn't a Ric copy.

I find it very thin. Just got in after gigging the new bass. Stayed in tune, a joy to play and sounded absolutely thunderous through CTM 100 and BF Compact. The neck is loverly.

Sorry for the confusion. The HB/Sandberg comparison was not with this particular bass. They were discussing a different instrument. My comment about the bridge was meant as an example to illustrate a wider point - in fact my whole post was more about the nature of subjectivity, the real thrust being in the analogy with photography. Reading back it comes across in parts as a swipe at other people and their views which wasn't my intention and so I apologise for that.

I found a comment on a review which made sense in this whole "are cheap basses crap or are expensive basses just expensive labels" debate. The reviewers said that in their opinion the Harley Benton had some features which were genuinely better than the Sandberg it was based upon, and others which were less good. But no way was the difference in price reflected in the difference in quality. The comment which I liked however was this. While the new off the shelf HB represented excellent value for money would it survive in such great condition after a couple of years of humidity and temperature changes? The pricey bass had stood that test well, remaining solid and up together, would the cheap instrument also be as stable? Time will tell. In general the whole debate seems as subjective as whether we like the shape of a bass or not. Those of you who have decided, for example, the bridge on my new bass is crap may actually be correct. If you held the bass in your hand you might even know this for sure rather than just making your mind up from a distance. But if, like me, you couldn't tell one bridge from another and as long as it stays where it's supposed to be and does what it should then you were totally happy with it, then it's a great bridge. We're both right depending on what we value and want from an instrument. No one is definitively correct or definitively in error. It's like cameras. Once I had upgraded my cameras and lenses to a certain point then the smallest improvements began to arrive at astonishingly huge price increases. Anyone who didn't give a fig about noise levels at high iso or chromatic abberation would shake their head in wonder at the fool who would blow such sums when their camera phone could take just as good a picture. And they'd be right. But I do care about such things so I stumped up the cash. The results (invisible to the average Joe) make it worthwhile because I get joy avery time I look at the pictures I get with this expensive gear. It's exactly the same with music because actually all that really matters in photography is the picture. If someone likes the picture they won't give a damn whether it was taken on a Nikon D850 or a Panasonic ZS80. If someone likes a song they really don't give a stuff what the bass player spent on his bass. We as bass players might care, but not necessarily to the same degree and maybe not about the same things. Playing in time is more important to me than what pick ups I'm using. Writing as bassline that makes the BL smile matters more to me than what material my tuning peg is made from. As long as the instrument doesn't hurt or explode and sounds OK to me that is all that matters, not label, not price. Anyway we heard all this before on Bassworld. back then it was Behringer who's products were being lambasted. Generic tales of speakers blowing up at the first rehearsal were being repeated like a Trump speech. Their kit was cheap Chinese made crap said those who wouldn't go within a mile of it. Now? Now I see it used everywhere and I still have and use some of their stuff I bought decades ago and it still works and sounds great - to me. Doesn't mean it is great. You simply can't measure these things. Or you can measure everything but if the measurements don't mean anything to you then do they matter?

Glad I bought a Harley Benton and not one of these Chickenbackers - they sound awful.

We regularly do a cheap and cheerful gig at a cheap and slightly scary pub. The owners of the venue also own a nice hotel which they've invited us to play this NYE. Nice paycheck, food and drink and accommodation thrown in. Being the only sober member of the band they have even reserved me a single room with everyone else sharing so I can get to bed while they get wasted and I don't get woken up by their amusing drunken banter. I call that a win.

30 beautiful sounding basses. Obviously a great musician will sound great on any instrument. I would have them all! Yep even the horrendous ugly ones that looked like the designs were chosen from the least successful drawings in a competition of blind 5 year olds working with crayons on a roller-coaster. Drunk.

It's difficult to say what was my best or favourite purchase. This is because I'm old and can't remember what I've bought. I suspect it will turn out to be the Yamaha BB. A seriously good bass.

I wanna red one!!

I can't afford to indulge in resolutions. I have to do the right thing now not promise myself that I will do it in the future. Experience teaches me that I'm the kind who replaces action with intention. Different for others I know, having said that I do hope to get back on my push bike as soon as possible

My parents generation would scoff at Made In Hong Kong on a label. We used to hear 'Jap Crap' now Crafted In Japan is a badge of honour and everything is made in China. Once our economy is finally destroyed completely Asian manufacturers will probably outsource to the UK to exploit the cheap labour and lack of employment law and produce Brit Sh|t or some such.

As above. Its a great piece of kit, works just fine with my zoom

Well, I basically spent the entire afternoon and evening playing my latest Harley Benton. Very very pleased with it and will definitely gig it on Thursday.

Anyway, call it what you will, I loved it the moment I saw it, it plays beautifully, and I don't regard it as a cheap instrument - except in terms of it's price. I have moved on 'better' basses over the decades which were not as good. Not nearly.

So ... not really a CB then ...