Harley Benton MB-5 SBK (5 string, Stingray style, stealth black) is back!!!

[mcnach]

I have one, I love it... and after being unavailable for many months it looks like it's back:

 

https://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_mb_5_sbk_deluxe_series.htm

 

 

[Owen]

Tell me more. 

[TheGreek]

I know that HB are slowly gaining respect within the music community but for about another £100 you could have got yourself a genuine used MM SUB 5 which won't depreciate.

 

I suspect you'll find it easier to get pregnant than to sell this on for close to what you paid.

[Owen]

18 minutes ago, TheGreek said:

I suspect you'll find it easier to get pregnant than to sell this on for close to what you paid.

I have lost WAY more than the full purchase price on many basses.

[jd56hawk]

If I had to have a 5-string, this would be it!

[Guest]

I like how that looks. I never worry about resale if the bass meets my needs, sounds great and feels good. It does seem like HB is doing good things lately.  Does it sound as good as it looks? Does it have its own sound or does it cop the SR sound reasonably well? 

[binky_bass]

At £118 someone is getting shafted. I can't see how everyone in the production line gets a fair deal at £118, I'd guess whoever is actually building these is getting paid pennies an hour to afford us the privilege of a cheap bass.

[Munurmunuh]

20 minutes ago, binky_bass said:

At £118 someone is getting shafted. I can't see how everyone in the production line gets a fair deal at £118, I'd guess whoever is actually building these is getting paid pennies an hour to afford us the privilege of a cheap bass.

 

At that price, it's highly automated with almost no costly human beings getting in the way. QC is the mostly costly bit, so presumably the steep drop in prices is because the automation has reached a level where the product can be trusted to come off the machines and go straight into the boxes.

 

I was wondering recently why Yamaha have their factory for electric guitars in Indonesia and the one for acoustics in China. The explanation was that building acoustics still requires a lot more attention from human hands, and that's cheaper in China.

[mcnach]

13 hours ago, TheGreek said:

I know that HB are slowly gaining respect within the music community but for about another £100 you could have got yourself a genuine used MM SUB 5 which won't depreciate.

 

I suspect you'll find it easier to get pregnant than to sell this on for close to what you paid.

 

Good luck finding a MusicMan SUB5, let alone at that price. The 4 string ones tend to go upwards of £450 these days.

I used to have one, it was great, and heavy as... 

Great basses, no doubt. I do prefer the HB. As it's often the case, I had to carefully file the fret ends and the nut could be cut a bit lower, but it just feels right in my hands and sounds great too. The first 5 string bass I feel at home with.

[mcnach]

6 hours ago, Moving Pictures said:

I like how that looks. I never worry about resale if the bass meets my needs, sounds great and feels good. It does seem like HB is doing good things lately.  Does it sound as good as it looks? Does it have its own sound or does it cop the SR sound reasonably well? 

 

It does sound like some flavour of a Stingray.

 

It's passive, with a Jazz style wiring like the old OLPs used to be, where you get a separate volume for each coil. I don't find that particularly useful, although I often play it with just the neck facing coil and rolling the volume down a bit. Nice and fat and funky. I might rewire it so that I get both coils in series too, which is an option I really like on Stingray style basses.

 

The string spacing is a bit on the narrow side, and I prefer wide necks/spacing, but I got used to it.

[Lfalex v1.1]

I had an OLP wired like that,  and can't say I really got much out of that arrangement.

I think a Series/parallel switch and more "elaborate" passive tone switching could be achieved fairly effectively while still retaining the 3 control format. 

Edited August 6, 2021 by Lfalex v1.1
Like the Passive Timmy C signature 'Ray...

[Al Krow]

@mcnach - some of the HB models have a rep for being quite heavy which has been a bit of a deal breaker for me in the past. What's the weight on this one?

[mcnach]

4 hours ago, Lfalex v1.1 said:

I had an OLP wired like that,  and can't say I really got much out of that arrangement.

I think a Series/parallel switch and more "elaborate" passive tone switching could be achieved fairly effectively while still retaining the 3 control format. 

 

Indeed I was considering installing a rotary switch for pickup series/parallel/neck-facing-singlecoil, master volume and a tonestyler type of tone control... then I remembered I have a John East U-Retro in a drawer somewhere, so I'm tempted. The semiparametric mids really makes the series/parallel option unnecessary. Not in a hurry, 'though.

[mcnach]

4 hours ago, Al Krow said:

@mcnach - some of the HB models have a rep for being quite heavy which has been a bit of a deal breaker for me in the past. What's the weight on this one?

 

It is not very heavy, the SBK series (black satin) seemed to be generally on the light side from comments that I've read from others. I will check when I'm at home.  

[kodiakblair]

On 05/08/2021 at 18:56, TheGreek said:

I suspect you'll find it easier to get pregnant than to sell this on for close to what you paid.

Not in my experience. 

 

I used Bentons as an inexpensive way to try different styles of basses, nearly always broke even when moving them on.  Price rises  played a part but mostly buyers were going the risk-free route, a well set up bass with no issues. Only time I really lost money was selling to a pal, "mate's rates" cost me a whopping £20 on a £200 purchase.

[Guest]

18 hours ago, mcnach said:

 

It does sound like some flavour of a Stingray.

 

It's passive, with a Jazz style wiring like the old OLPs used to be, where you get a separate volume for each coil. I don't find that particularly useful, although I often play it with just the neck facing coil and rolling the volume down a bit. Nice and fat and funky. I might rewire it so that I get both coils in series too, which is an option I really like on Stingray style basses.

 

The string spacing is a bit on the narrow side, and I prefer wide necks/spacing, but I got used to it.

Sounds wonderful. Thanks for sharing that. 

[mcnach]

On 06/08/2021 at 09:18, Al Krow said:

@mcnach - some of the HB models have a rep for being quite heavy which has been a bit of a deal breaker for me in the past. What's the weight on this one?

 

 

9.1 lbs this one

 

 

[Al Krow]

That's a great weight. I'm currently lacking an MM 5'er in my herd...

How close does it get to the classic MM tone? I'm kinda expecting the pup and preamp at the HB price point to be pretty meh - are they better than that?

[mcnach]

4 hours ago, Al Krow said:

That's a great weight. I'm currently lacking an MM 5'er in my herd...

How close does it get to the classic MM tone? I'm kinda expecting the pup and preamp at the HB price point to be pretty meh - are they better than that?

 

It's got the right style of pickup at the right spot, so it's going to remind you of a Stingray. The preamp gives you versatility, but a passive Stingray sounds very much like a Stingray. 

These basses are passive, but if you get one and like it enough there are lots of preamps you can try. 

 

I am happy enough with the original pickup. I'm a tinkerer and love modifying guitars, but I don't feel the need to change it. My 4-string Stingray sounds nicer, but we're talking an order of magnitude more expensive with a very nice 3-band preamp (John East MMSR). Regardless, I like it plenty. 

 

 

[Harps]

This looks great! Ive been wanting to try out a 5 string, this looks like a great way to try on the cheap.

cheers

[NancyJohnson]

Just being objective for a moment, would anyone actually look at this bass twice if the body shape was different?

 

The point I'm trying to make is just because something looks like something, doesn't mean it is something.  With no disrespect, it might pay like a dream, but seeing the comment by @mcnachthat, 'It does sound like some flavour of a Stingray' made me chortle a bit; you need to watch the footage of the blind bass shoot-out from the SE Bass Bash a few years back, my friend.  25 basses, 30 bass players all trying to work out what bass @cetera was playing behind a curtain.  People couldn't even recognise their own basses, let alone any others.  It's amazing how vanilla pretty much every bass sounded.

 

If Thomann stuck that pickup and circuit on this Soviet beauty, nobody would be saying it sounded like a Stingray. 

 

 

[PaulThePlug]

Wow... Cold War Special...

[Jus Lukin]

-

Edited March 15, 2022 by Jus Lukin

[hiram.k.hackenbacker]

A sheep in wolfs clothing if ever there was….but at £118, I can see the attraction.

I wouldn’t buy one myself, but that’s me.

[Munurmunuh]