Harley Benton Enhanced basses

[peety]

Looking for a relatively cheap back up to my Marusczyk Jake as at the moment we have regular gigs starting again at the beginning of July Covid permitting. 

I'm down to one bass for the first time for a while, however not keen on spending too much as i always tend to use the Jake, so a spare would at the most time be left in a case or on a stand for emergencies.

Quite like the look of these for the price especially as they have the same pick up configuration as my Jake , just wondered if anyone has experience of them be interested in peoples thoughts

Seen a few you tube reviews which seem favourable 

 

Cheers 

[BassApprentice]

I looked into these a while back as I love Sandbergs and they are definitely aiming for that market with these. The consensus was:

-Good quality fit and finish

-Tend to be heavy 

-Preamp is a bit naff

[Delberthot]

I'd agree with the points above. The finish is incredibly good but the sound isn't very good. I think they've tried to fit as much as they could in there to a price and unless you wanted to upgrade components then you may ( or may not ) be disappointed.

I briefly owned one before sending it back as it was easily the heaviest bass I had every played in my life. i generally don't have an issue with heavy basses but this thing was so heavy it was uncomfortable as soon as I put it on.

The preamp was either fizzly treble or muffled. I just couldn't get eanything that I wanted out of it

This was the one that I had

 

 

 

 

Edited June 10, 2021 by Delberthot

[peety]

Thanks guys the reviews I read were that the pickups in the jazz were not great , and the musician style pickup in the Precision version wasn’t the best however the split coil was good but in passive mode 

 

the Weight is also a worry , there are a couple of cheaper Precision’s that would probably serve my purpose especially as it would only be gigged in an emergency or played around on at home 

[gafbass02]

I have one and absolutely love it. It’s only slightly heavier than my fender and yes, In isolation the preamp is somewhat muffled. But in a band context it sits really well. It’s become my main bass! 

[peety]

Cheers thanks for that they have a b stock one available for around £ 200 in natural even with the taxes it’ look a lot of bass for the money 

[stewblack]

So much of the HB preamp debate is actually about personal taste rather than quality. 

I love that they're not full on in your face powerful. The gentler, more subtle sound suits my style. 

At the money they charge swapping for a different preamp is always an option. 

[NancyJohnson]

1 hour ago, stewblack said:

So much of the HB preamp debate is actually about personal taste rather than quality. 

I love that they're not full on in your face powerful. The gentler, more subtle sound suits my style. 

At the money they charge swapping for a different preamp is always an option. 

This is spot on.

Pretty much every post I do now raises the point that tone is subjective; an earlier post here cites a reviewer saying that in one instance the pickups 'were not that good'. What actually constitutes good?  I currently own six basses, broadly they cost me £20-£5,500, they all same pretty much the same, I wouldn't be able to say the pickups thereon are 'good', because what they do is subjective.

Christ, it's a £250 bass; if Geddy Lee decided he was going to go the HB route, players globally would be hoovering these up and saying they're the greatest basses since they hoovered up his Signature model.

[bnt]

On 19/06/2021 at 08:07, stewblack said:

So much of the HB preamp debate is actually about personal taste rather than quality.

The specific problem I had, which led me to install active EMGs in mine, was not the active EQ as such, but what came before it: the unbuffered output of the two pickups going through standard passive balance controls, and a 25k volume control, before it got to the circuit. I don't like to see a passive pickup signal with such a low resistance in the signal path.

On top of that, the stock P's output is huge, which I like in general, but it doesn't play nice with the MM pickup, or with the active EQ. The MJ version might be better-behaved in that regard - I don't know.

Note that I don't call it an active preamp, since it's only an EQ circuit: in my view the first job of a preamp is to buffer the signal before it's subjected to mixing or processing. It's probably OK as EQ circuits go, actually, but it didn't stand a chance due to the too-hot, badly-mixed signal it was getting.

[Lfalex v1.1]

12 hours ago, bnt said:

The specific problem I had, which led me to install active EMGs in mine, was not the active EQ as such, but what came before it: the unbuffered output of the two pickups going through standard passive balance controls, and a 25k volume control, before it got to the circuit. I don't like to see a passive pickup signal with such a low resistance in the signal path.

That's an odd implementation. 

I'd have expected something like;

Pickups- Blend pot- EQ- Volume control- output jack.

Maybe it's to facilitate easier active/passive switching, or is related to the P pickup being very hot.

[stewblack]

Not deliberately playing dumb, I genuinely don't understand a word of the above. So I apologise for saying its simply a matter of taste. 

Those who know about the technical side of it clearly make their choices based on a more scientific basis. 

For me I just like how the bass sounds and what happens when I increase or cut the tone. 

[Geek99]

That looks pretty awesome for 250£

[bnt]

4 hours ago, Lfalex v1.1 said:

That's an odd implementation. 

I'd have expected something like;

Pickups- Blend pot- EQ- Volume control- output jack.

Maybe it's to facilitate easier active/passive switching, or is related to the P pickup being very hot.

Since I first rewired mine last year, I went back to the parts I have and this diagram I found on TalkBass. It’s for the MJ but it matches what I remember on my MP:

Now, it’s possible that the 25k volume pot is after the EQ in active mode, but I don’t think so based on that diagram. And even if it was, we would still have that situation  in passive mode. 
 

 

Edited June 21, 2021 by bnt