Harley Benton B-650 Black Progressive Series

257 Customer ratings

4.6 / 5

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49 Reviews

Harley Benton B-650 Black Progressive Series
$179
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K
An absolute unit.
Kenny1614 07.10.2022
This thing is beastly, heavy, and great for tuning down to A or lower.
Stays in tune very well.
The only downside is I have an unavoidable fret buzz on the low B string while using the 2nd fret only. Unsure if that's due to fret leveling, but even with trying to set it up differently it was still unavoidable which is kind of a bummer.
Pickups are okay, I would probably change them at some point but they get the job done well enough running through DSP Parallax.
Mainly use it for metal, and downtuned projects.
Not too much of a fan of the neck wood, it's pretty dry and something with the texture of it, but it's a budget guitar and definitely worth your money despite the small little opinion nit picks.
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MB
Excellent value for money
Matthew Bull 28.12.2022
I never realised you could get a 6-string bass this cheap. And I certainly never imagined you’d get a bass this cheap with this level of quality.

The bass sounds good, and has a great feel and build quality. It feels like a much more expensive bass. It makes a great beginner 6-string. Although to be honest I feel like I’d need to be playing 6-string a lot before I’d be able to justify spending considerably more money on the next level up.

The bass arrived needing a complete setup: one of the truss rods was way too tight, and the action could not physically have been higher. But these are fairly minor adjustments, which you’d likely want to do on any new bass.

Overall I’m extremely pleased with my bass, and would recommend anyone new to 6-strings to try this out.
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NH
Didn't expeсt that
Nick Horns 17.04.2020
Aсtually, I was pretty muсh amazed by this bass out of the box. Everything was very good and smooth, not even a tiny blemish in the finish, no wood filler seen on the neсk, no sharp fret edges, the tuners work really well and hold in tune even after hard slap grooves.
The only thing I had to сhange is the string height. Strings were quite high above frets on 15+ frets. It was playable smoothly, though I do a lot of tapping and had to adjust string height to my needs.
The sound is pretty good and сan be easily adjusted to sound the best with any type of amps that I had to faсe on different gigs.
The only minus I сan name is that the сutaway doesn't provide aссess to upper frets (like 19-24). May be the plastiс nut is not great, though it doesn't affeсt the tuning stability.

To sum up, a great instrument for the money. Planning to buy the BZ-6000 and сompare them :)
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A
Great bass for the price
Amdallz78 09.11.2021
Sounds good, but needs some work. Potentiometers dangle a little. The strings are a little rattling and the 4th potentiometer is inconvenient to use. The bass itself is well assembled.
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A
Decent introduction
Anonymous 05.03.2016
I bought this bass recently as I fancied dabbling into the world of the 6 string.Packaging was good and I noticed no flaws in the item out of the box.The bass was properly intonated and the tuners agree. I couldn't find any dead spots nor bad fretwork. Right off, you notice the clarity of the notes throughout. Chords are fairly clear, but if you want versatility, you won't get it with the stock electronics. The weight is also nice for a 6 string bass-this is definitely on the light end!!
The action is also decent- you can get the strings pretty low before buzz if you like that kind of setup. The string spacing is slightly on the narrow side,but I?ve got small hands. Playing with a lower level Peavey this bass mostly seems worth the purchase.
Now to the two things that I noticed that weren`t to my liking:
1)the B string is a bit floppy-but truth be told I expected it to be.Outside of the very expensive 6 string basses you`ll have a job finding a perfect b string.I can live with it.
2)Slap & pop technique-the former isn`t as unclean as I expected considering the string spacing,but the latter is surprisingly difficult due to the length of the fretboard.You literally have room for a single finger on the high C string between the fretboard end and the neck pickup. More space should have been given accomodate more fingers.I think design and aesthetics came before playability here.

Resumé: a decent all black active 6 stringer that is great value for the money and also a good introduction to the 6 stringers.I would recommend it!
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N
Brilliant for the price, but has some flaws
Nickthomann 18.04.2021
The bass I received has a very good quality neck, amazing considering the purchase price. The body and hardware is also very good. On this basis, the price/performance is incredible. The pickups don't seem to be particularly good, but I guess this is to be expected, given the price.

There are however a couple of issues.

The original strings were unplayable. I replaced them immediately.

The main issue is that, at least for me, it is very difficult to slap/pop on this bass, due to 1/ interference incurring if a string touches the neck pickup when mute slapping, and 2/ due to the neck pickup being too close to the neck, making popping difficult.

I'm considering pulling out the pickups, replacing the bridge pickup with a different one, and putting a cover over the neck pickup hole. Perhaps a small redesign should be done. I'd rather have a single bridge pickup a bit father from the bridge (like a Stingray) than these two pickups and the resulting issues.
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H
Excellent, if considering price
Heeplv 07.07.2023
Features. Very feature-rich bass guitar (perhaps, even too rich). There are a lots of possibilities to tweak the sound, but the resulting sound is not always usable. Still, works well, considering the fact, it is the cheapest 6-string bass in the universe.

Sound. Quite typical for this kind of instruments, a bit muddy, but OK.

Playability. Very comfortable neck, all good. Has a tendency of neck dive, but this is typical for 6 string basses. Sustain - very good. Tuners and tuning stability - excellent.

Quality. Mine was very well-finished, but needed some fretwork - many of frets were set in a bit different level, so, caused buzz in several places, but fixed easily by fret file. Potentiometers are mostly OK, the only issue I had is loud pop sound when switching between active and passive modes (not a problem, but should remember about this).
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Db
Very good affordable 6 string bass
Dartanjan bass 17.01.2023
The general construction and sound of this instrument is very good considering the price. The bass is well setup and is easy to play. There is only a little bit of fret sprout (sharp fret ends).
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A
A good bass, but with some design flaws
Aten 02.08.2018
I don't have it now, but it was a good bass. Very nice and versatile sound, but the neck was too heady while the body too light, and it easily drained the batteries.
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N
Great for the price, with some minor issues
Nicebiscuit 18.03.2021
Prefer the sound of this over my SR500 which was over twice the price, so very pleased on the sound.
String spacing makes for great playability with fingers and pick, but makes popping slightly more tricky.
The shape of the body makes playing sitting down quite difficult, as the bass constantly slides off my leg.
Came perfectly intonated and nice low action, however there is fret buzz on the first fret of the B string
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Harley Benton B-650 Black Progressive Series