Sandberg VM5 vs Harley Benton MP-5EB

[Al Krow]

1 hour ago, TheLowDown said:

I've just Googled the alder version and it's 4kg (8.8lbs). Elsewhere it's been reported at 4.3 - 4.5kg (9.5 - 9.9lbs). That's the Harley Benton Enhanced MP-5EB alder version.

Thanks - I've also seen the Alder reported as 4.5kg to 4.7kg, which should be just about manageable at the top end with a decent strap. But if I get one around 10lbs or less even better! 

[jrixn1]

1 hour ago, TheLowDown said:

I've just Googled the alder version and it's 4kg (8.8lbs). Elsewhere it's been reported at 4.3 - 4.5kg (9.5 - 9.9lbs). That's the Harley Benton Enhanced MP-5EB alder version.

You have to be carefully when Googling.  If it's the "4kg" review which flashes up on the first page, what it actually says when you click though is:

"I read that a 5-string Harley Benton Enhanced MP-5EB with an Alder body weighs up to 4 kg!
FALSE !!  My weight is 4,780 kg"

[Al Krow]

2 minutes ago, jrixn1 said:

You have to be carefully when Googling.  If it's the "4kg" review which flashes up on the first page, what it actually says when you click though is:

"I read that a 5-string Harley Benton Enhanced MP-5EB with an Alder body weighs up to 4 kg!
FALSE !!  My weight is 4,780 kg"

Thanks John. That would be back into 'uncomfortable' territory for me, for sure.

[TheLowDown]

8 minutes ago, jrixn1 said:

You have to be carefully when Googling.  If it's the "4kg" review which flashes up on the first page, what it actually says when you click though is:

"I read that a 5-string Harley Benton Enhanced MP-5EB with an Alder body weighs up to 4 kg!
FALSE !!  My weight is 4,780 kg"

That's why I mentioned that "elsewhere it's been reported....". I've always found that there's often a large range of weights reported even for the same bass.

[Stub Mandrel]

4 hours ago, Cuzzie said:

Swapping electronics cost can always be offset by selling the others, although you may struggle to sell HB ones as opposed to whatever is in the Sandberg.

At ~£250 for teh HB and £1250 for the Sandberg, you can afford to give the HB away if you can afford the instant depreciation on buying the Sandberg.

[Cuzzie]

3 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

At ~£250 for teh HB and £1250 for the Sandberg, you can afford to give the HB away if you can afford the instant depreciation on buying the Sandberg.

Everyone has a price point and a depreciation rate they can afford

I think the point someone made earlier was in reference to getting the HB and pimping it, whereas a judicious second hand buy of a sandberg narrows that gap, do you do your own electronics and soldering etc

[Doddy]

I haven't played either bass, but I think that I would hold out for the Sandberg. Because those basses are far apart, price wise, I'm assuming that you really want the Sandberg but would settle for the Harley Benton because it's cheaper. If that's the case, you'll never be fully satisfied with the Harley Benton no matter how good it is.

 

 

[M@23]

A £300 HB is never going to be worth much more than £300, even if you spend an extra £350 upgrading it. Which is fine and great if you get a bass you love for £650, not so great if you like to chop and change basses. 
I’d like a Sandberg VM5, I had a mk1, my only gripe was that it weighed about 11lbs, also I prefer a smaller body and the newer ones have well and truly put that to rest. I know if I got a VM5 again it’d work wonders for me out of the box, be sub 9lbs and come from a cool company. I’d really like a relic’d one as well... heavier relic the better; which will only add insult to injury for some. 

Edited March 5, 2021 by M@23

[TheLowDown]

I think a lot of it should depend on if it's going to be your main/primary bass. If not, would the Sandberg provide value?

[Al Krow]

10 minutes ago, TheLowDown said:

I think a lot of it should depend on if it's going to be your main/primary bass. If not, would the Sandberg provide value?

Very nicely put.

[Al Krow]

2 hours ago, M@23 said:

A £300 HB is never going to be worth much more than £300, even if you spend an extra £350 upgrading it. Which is fine and great if you get a bass you love for £650, not so great if you like to chop and change basses. 
I’d like a Sandberg VM5, I had a mk1, my only gripe was that it weighed about 11lbs, also I prefer a smaller body and the newer ones have well and truly put that to rest. I know if I got a VM5 again it’d work wonders for me out of the box, be sub 9lbs and come from a cool company. I’d really like a relic’d one as well... heavier relic the better; which will only add insult to injury for some. 

I think there's a broader message in your first point Mark which is modding (as opposed to refi'ing) a bass very rarely increases the value. Maybe some parallels with house refurb work in that a lick of paint is known to give you max bang for your buck in terms of value-add.

Point here is if you start with a £300 HB chassis (delivered to your door) and need to spend £350 on electronics (Black labels plus Glock 3 band preamp) to get a P/MM that you really like - you've forked out £650 on a new bass.

Used VM5 Bergs seem to be going for north of £1k these days (the ones in the FS are on at £1,200 after being reduced). If you want to swap out the pups e.g. to put some Black labels in to get a (used) bass, which hopefully you'd still really like, but now costing £1,200+

If you're just in it to make money then get yourself a Wal and put it away in a hard case in a humidity controlled room. (I personally wouldn't recommend Bitcoin 'coz (a) it's a Ponzi scheme and (b) I don't have a spare $1.5 billion knocking around that I wouldn't notice if it went missing...)

If you want value for money on a bass you're going to play, then @TheLowDown has asked exactly the right question IMO. Interestingly, @Doddy in this case I wouldn't feel I would be settling for less, because I would have got the bass I was after for half the price; and we're into USA Fender vs MIM Fender and Yamaha BB2034/5  vs BB1024/5 discussion territory.

What is going to be the deal breaker for me is if the HB is much above 10 lbs, which it could well be. A real shame.

Edited March 5, 2021 by Al Krow

[Guest]

Weight is an interesting thing - it’s not really tied to the retail price of a bass but more whether the manufacturer has considered it important. I’ve had a total of 3 MM Sterling 5s, and although I know the Stingray Specials were lightened, all 3 are over 4.6Kg. All but two of the many Fenders I’ve owned were 4.5Kgs+, as are plenty of other manufacturers (including Sandberg). It’s when the weight is important that you tend to get more consistently light instruments, e.g. Dingwall and Sadowsky. That careful selection of the highest quality wood (and/or chambering) results in basses much closer to 4Kg (or less. For me, an even balance across the neck and body is probably worth 0.5Kg-1Kg extra weight. A recent case in point was actually a Sadowsky that was dead on 4Kg but felt significantly heavier because the headstock just wanted to hit the deck. If the HB balances very well, then for you, maybe 4.7Kg may be borderline acceptable? I’ve got a Sire coming that, if OK, I’ll fit some spare Ultralites to that should result in a 4.4Kg bass

[Cuzzie]

36 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

I think there's a broader message in your first point Mark which is modding (as opposed to refi'ing) a bass very rarely increases the value. Maybe some parallels with house refurb work in that a lick of paint is known to give you max bang for your buck in terms of value-add.

Point here is if you start with a £300 HB chassis (delivered to your door) and need to spend £350 on electronics (Black labels plus Glock 3 band preamp) to get a P/MM that you really like - you've forked out £650 on a new bass.

Used VM5 Bergs seem to be going for north of £1k these days (the ones in the FS are on at £1,200 after being reduced). If you want to swap out the pups e.g. to put some Black labels in to get a (used) bass, which hopefully you'd still really like, but now costing £1,200+

If you're just in it to make money then get yourself a Wal and put it away in a hard case in a humidity controlled room. (I personally wouldn't recommend Bitcoin 'coz (a) it's a Ponzi scheme and (b) I don't have a spare $1.5 billion knocking around that I wouldn't notice if it went missing...)

If you want value for money on a bass you're going to play, then @TheLowDown has asked exactly the right question IMO. Interestingly, @Doddy in this case I wouldn't feel I would be settling for less, because I would have got the bass I was after for half the price; and we're into USA Fender vs MIM Fender and Yamaha BB2034/5  vs BB1024/5 discussion territory.

What is going to be the deal breaker for me is if the HB is much above 10 lbs, which it could well be. A real shame.

Except that if you fork out £650 for a new Modded HB bass if you want to sell it off it will go for £200-£250. Granted if you sell off the electronics and restore it back to original you may get slightly more - it also depends on whether you need someone else to do the electronics work.

Get a used berg for £1-1.2k - your up to £350 spent on modding (you may not change the pre amp) would be offset with up to at least £150 probably back selling off the original pick ups and whatever.

If you sell it off, it will still fetch about £1-1.2k

Higher capital outlay at the start - but not the fall off.

If you build it and never sell - HB makes the most sense to buy and pimp as less overall outlay

[DanPluck]

I've owned the HB previously and as everyone says, the preamp is awful and needs switching out.    The whole package is great for the price but does need some time invested.  The paint on mine was also thin.

In the end I upgraded to the Glock 2 band, new knobs and MM pickup in order to try and scratch the Sandberg itch on the cheap.  

It didn't work and 6 weeks later I picked up a used Nighthawk and there is simply no comparison. (There shouldn't be either given the price difference).

If you need to scratch the Sandberg itch, buy a used one like I did.  They are in another league.

 

[Al Krow]

1 hour ago, DanPluck said:

I've owned the HB previously and as everyone says, the preamp is awful and needs switching out.    The whole package is great for the price but does need some time invested.  The paint on mine was also thin.

In the end I upgraded to the Glock 2 band, new knobs and MM pickup in order to try and scratch the Sandberg itch on the cheap.  

It didn't work and 6 weeks later I picked up a used Nighthawk and there is simply no comparison. (There shouldn't be either given the price difference).

If you need to scratch the Sandberg itch, buy a used one like I did.  They are in another league.

Cheers - that's really useful feedback. It's actually more a reverse-P plus (MM (or J) itch in a 5er for me. There aren't too many around in that config and the HB is offering one in a relatively budget package in the same body shape as the Berg VM5. My Sandberg itch actually got very well scratched a while back - I had one as my goto gigging for several years, so I'm familiar with their (very good) build qualities and also the aspects that don't quite float my boat.

Which HB model did you have? They seem to go from really really budget, to just budget so I'm guessing there will be a range of quality and finish even in the HB range.

Interestingly the HB MP5-EB's I understand are put together in Indonesia, which most folk would consider to be a more upmarket bass manufacturing location than their main manufacturing base in China

[DanPluck]

10 hours ago, Al Krow said:

Cheers - that's really useful feedback. It's actually more a reverse-P plus (MM (or J) itch in a 5er for me. There aren't too many around in that config and the HB is offering one in a relatively budget package in the same body shape as the Berg VM5. My Sandberg itch actually got very well scratched a while back - I had one as my goto gigging for several years, so I'm familiar with their (very good) build qualities and also the aspects that don't quite float my boat.

Which HB model did you have? They seem to go from really really budget, to just budget so I'm guessing there will be a range of quality and finish even in the HB range.

Interestingly the HB MP5-EB's I understand are put together in Indonesia, which most folk would consider to be a more upmarket bass manufacturing location than their main manufacturing base in China

I had the Harley Benton Enhanced MP-4EB Lake Blue.  Overall it was ok, the finish was a little rough in places, like paint/dye on the bindings, thin-ish paint.  To me it feels like they tried to do too much on this model, if they had ditched the binding i would have "felt" much better about the fit and finish.

They are very difficult to beat for the money, just don't expect perfection.

[Al Krow]

11 minutes ago, DanPluck said:

I had the Harley Benton Enhanced MP-4EB Lake Blue.  Overall it was ok, the finish was a little rough in places, like paint/dye on the bindings, thin-ish paint.  To me it feels like they tried to do too much on this model, if they had ditched the binding i would have "felt" much better about the fit and finish.

They are very difficult to beat for the money, just don't expect perfection.

Thanks for that - so you had the same model but in the 4 string version. Do you recall how much it weighed and how well it balanced / much neck dive? 

[krispn]

23 hours ago, Al Krow said:

Haha - not sure about that! If you're swapping out the electronics on both the Berg and the HB e.g. to get set of Black Labels the HB is going to win every time.

Biggest loss on a bass I've ever suffered was on a...Sandberg. And if the Berg route was such good option then, not sure why folk would be doing the following?

Clearly madness 😁

Be interested to know how much you lost on the Sandberg and if that was a brand new purchase and you just lost the normal new to used depreciation or if it was some other reason?

My HB was £90 and I already had the pick up. If I route it for a reverse p I’ll still hang on to it and it currently sounds better than the cheap bass we have at work for our music/choir group. Worst case the HB will be left at the music room and I’ll use it there.  Might fit the tone styler too and hear what that brings - the joy of doing the work oneself so no additional labour costs. Add a soldering iron to you upgrade costs and learn a new skill too while saving money!
 

If you’re after a near mint used Sandberg then naturally you’re into four figure territory but then you could wait for the spec you’re after and I suspect there’s no rush your end. There are some bargains out there though. 
 

As you know I’ve pimped a Squier bass and very happy with the results so I’d still say just buy the HB, do the upgrades and if you sell it down the line you can shift the parts and not lose too much on it. 

Edited March 6, 2021 by krispn

[Al Krow]

2 minutes ago, krispn said:

My HB was £90 and I already had the pick up. If I route it for a reverse p I’ll still hang on to it and it currently sounds better than the cheap bass we have at work for our music/choir group. Worst case the HB will be left at the music room and I’ll use it there.  Might fit the tone styler too and hear what that brings - the joy of doing the work oneself so no additional labour costs. Add a soldering iron to you upgrade costs and learn a new skill too while saving money!
If you’re after a near mint used Sandberg then naturally you’re into four figure territory but then you could wait for the spec you’re after and I suspect there’s no rush your end. There are some bargains out there though. 
As you know I’ve pimped a Squier bass and very happy with the results so I’d still say just buy the HB, do the upgrades and if you sell it down the line you can shift the parts and not lose too much on it. 

Agreed with all that! And in terms of "pimping a bass" it's gotta be safer / make more sense to start with something budget, right?

The only fly in the ointment is the weight of the HB model I'm after. Thomann were historically superb at returns - and that would be the one issue I would return it for, but I understand it's a bit of mare arranging that currently to / from the EU? And for some reason, stores are IME pretty poor at actually providing you with an accurate weight estimate for their basses (well certainly Andertons and PMT in my experience) - probably because the warehouse is in different location to the sales team. But I'll drop them a line and see if they can let me know what the models they have for shipping are weighing in at.

[Cuzzie]

Give guitarbuild.co.uk a nudge - you can get a body and neck with routing of choice for a little over the price of the HB.

Finish how you want, but rubbing in Tru Oil doesn’t need a Luthier and can be done easily at home, that an a Phillips screw driver you can piece it together.

Solderingiron is pittance, but a quick solder job if someone else had to do it and do the rest yourself really keeps the cost down

Edited March 6, 2021 by Cuzzie

[Cuzzie]

Although with modding yourself,  the more expensive the bass the more careful you are perversely as you defo do not want to roger it.

It all counts as Patina

[Al Krow]

12 minutes ago, Cuzzie said:

Give guitarbuild.co.uk a nudge - you can get a body and neck with routing of choice for a little over the price of the HB.

Finish how you want, but rubbing in Tru Oil doesn’t need a Luthier and can be done easily at home, that an a Phillips screw driver you can piece it together.

Solderingiron is pittance, but a quick solder job if someone else had to do it and do the rest yourself really keeps the cost down

With the same quality of woods (Alder) neck (Maple) and fretboard as the HB? Tuners included?

I'm thinking that the additional effort re finishing it off will be a fair bit of work, which I know you would love to do and are geared up, but I suspect me much less so!

Edited March 6, 2021 by Al Krow

[Cuzzie]

2 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

With the same quality of woods (Alder) neck (Maple) and fretboard as the HB? Tuners included?

Can’t say I have ever looked to compare HB wood to GB wood but there will be info out there, certainly GB seems OK

Tuners you get get from £30 for 5 all in to £300.

Have a look and decide what you fancy - it’s just an option

[krispn]

I guess your keeping tight lipped on the loss on the Sandberg? Was it bought from new and a priced to sell sold below market value? I’m just curious?

 

From memory they do three or four wood options and can chamber a body too. I think the point of going the guitarbuild route would be a keeper bass to your exact spec right down to the weight. I’ve not been on the site in a while as I had thought about a reverse p build before modding my p. If your thinking in and around the £650 mark with your exact spec it’s nearly a better option. Especially if your gonna swap tuners etc anyway. The problem is you can’t nitpick the small stuff which many folk use as an excuse not to actually buy in the end i.e. the preamp is only two band, it’s only got 21 frets etc. wrong colour etc etc.

If you’re minds set on getting a P/MM to a very tight spec  guitarbuild is probably an even better option especially if buying the hardware used... if you’re serious of course and not just thinking out loud on the internet. Plus you may recoup more on a custom build over selling a HB branded bass

Edited March 6, 2021 by krispn

[Al Krow]

42 minutes ago, Cuzzie said:

Can’t say I have ever looked to compare HB wood to GB wood but there will be info out there, certainly GB seems OK

Tuners you get get from £30 for 5 all in to £300.

Have a look and decide what you fancy - it’s just an option

Ok thanks - so getting back up to the cost of the HB with a set of tuners. I was very pleasantly surprised that a UK manufacturer could compete with HB's offshore production costs.

I think, knowing me, getting the HB used and swapping out a preamp and a pup sounds like the least hassle route! It's currently in competition with a 5er version of @mcnach's Schecter Model T Session which would be £100 more than a souped up HB, but seems to be very "good to go" straight out of the box and stacks up well against his VM4 from what he's said. I appreciate it's a P/J rather than a reverse-P/MM, but will be in the same ball park.

@krispn Sandberg was bought new, before I discovered the joys of buying used and just priced at the going rate when I sold it a couple of years back. But prices of both new and used have gone up since then on a lot of bass gear. But hey that was just my contribution to BD and no worse than my missus' collection of parking tickets over the years. 

I wonder how much the price movements upwards have just been a function of £ falling post 2016? £ is not too far off where it was a few years' back though now so we might see non-UK basses (which is most of them!) falling in price again, fingers crossed!

Edited March 6, 2021 by Al Krow