TR
A mixed bag
This one went back because of a slightly misaligned bridge. Other impressions:
Beautiful looks (maybe apart from the huge headstock if you ask me).
Chunky neck made of lovely maple with a soft feel. It felt great to me apart from several sharp fret ends. These need attention and the frets need a polish as well. On the positive side the stainless frets were level and the neck was straight (which is after all more important). Strings came with a very high action but I was able to adjust them down to a more playable level without any buzz. I also like the zero fret which is a rare feature especially in this price range.
This bass is fairly heavy for a 4-string. Ergonomics and balance is good though.
The push pull volume knob had a lot of play (a dead zone) which made it feel cheap. I didn't play the bass enough to make a final judgement on the pickups and preamp but I'm pretty sure that the pots and preamp would have been replaced soon if I had kept it. Not sure about the pickups, they might be fine.
All in all it's a nice looking bass with some premium features but in this case it was let down by poor fit and finish in some areas. I personally don't mind giving the frets some love on bass in this price range but a misaligned bridge and inaccurately drilled string holes underneath it would be too much of a hassle to make perfect. It wasn't so bad that it influenced playability much but I like my strings to align nicely with the neck and the pole pieces of the pickups. They didn't on this sample.
In the end I decided not to have it replaced with an identic model since a perfect one would still be slightly heavier than I prefer and it would likely also require some mods to the electronics to make me 100% happy. If you can live with that it's a lot of bass for the money though. Just cross your fingers and hope that you get a good one since the finish and quality control does not seem to be better here compared to Harley Benton's cheaper models.
Beautiful looks (maybe apart from the huge headstock if you ask me).
Chunky neck made of lovely maple with a soft feel. It felt great to me apart from several sharp fret ends. These need attention and the frets need a polish as well. On the positive side the stainless frets were level and the neck was straight (which is after all more important). Strings came with a very high action but I was able to adjust them down to a more playable level without any buzz. I also like the zero fret which is a rare feature especially in this price range.
This bass is fairly heavy for a 4-string. Ergonomics and balance is good though.
The push pull volume knob had a lot of play (a dead zone) which made it feel cheap. I didn't play the bass enough to make a final judgement on the pickups and preamp but I'm pretty sure that the pots and preamp would have been replaced soon if I had kept it. Not sure about the pickups, they might be fine.
All in all it's a nice looking bass with some premium features but in this case it was let down by poor fit and finish in some areas. I personally don't mind giving the frets some love on bass in this price range but a misaligned bridge and inaccurately drilled string holes underneath it would be too much of a hassle to make perfect. It wasn't so bad that it influenced playability much but I like my strings to align nicely with the neck and the pole pieces of the pickups. They didn't on this sample.
In the end I decided not to have it replaced with an identic model since a perfect one would still be slightly heavier than I prefer and it would likely also require some mods to the electronics to make me 100% happy. If you can live with that it's a lot of bass for the money though. Just cross your fingers and hope that you get a good one since the finish and quality control does not seem to be better here compared to Harley Benton's cheaper models.
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Y
First dissapointed, then happy.
I got a flawed instrument, where the pickups and bridge was not aligned.
So i had to change the pickups to inlined magnet ones to fix the alignment with the strings. Because of the stringthru body i could not move the bridge, witch had been an easy fix.
Bought EMG P and EMG MMTW. And now i have a bass that is nice to play, and sounds awesome. The MMTW pickup can be used as both a single and a humbucker. And together with the P pickup, i now have 3 different sounding options that can be blended together. The EMGs are better than the stock ones. Because i was unfortunate to buy a flawed bass, the shop gave me a 35€ cut in the price, witch was to little. But i did not want to ship back the bass, so i took it. The new pickups had a price that made the bass more expensive, but the end product after the upgrade fix, is good.
It's a heavy bass. And i guess the weight, build materials, string thru body, high mass bridge and quality pickups makes the big sound it has. I took out the stock pre amp, and used the pots and wires that came with the EMGs.
The stock pre amp ain't bad, so i will use it in my Ibanez gio200 wich has a bad stock pre amp.
After the upgrade fix, i am now happy with this beautiful bass. It is very nice looking, and you can se the quality parts and work witch has made this a bass build like a much more expensive one.
And i find it an easy bass to play, much because of it's nice slim neck.
So i had to change the pickups to inlined magnet ones to fix the alignment with the strings. Because of the stringthru body i could not move the bridge, witch had been an easy fix.
Bought EMG P and EMG MMTW. And now i have a bass that is nice to play, and sounds awesome. The MMTW pickup can be used as both a single and a humbucker. And together with the P pickup, i now have 3 different sounding options that can be blended together. The EMGs are better than the stock ones. Because i was unfortunate to buy a flawed bass, the shop gave me a 35€ cut in the price, witch was to little. But i did not want to ship back the bass, so i took it. The new pickups had a price that made the bass more expensive, but the end product after the upgrade fix, is good.
It's a heavy bass. And i guess the weight, build materials, string thru body, high mass bridge and quality pickups makes the big sound it has. I took out the stock pre amp, and used the pots and wires that came with the EMGs.
The stock pre amp ain't bad, so i will use it in my Ibanez gio200 wich has a bad stock pre amp.
After the upgrade fix, i am now happy with this beautiful bass. It is very nice looking, and you can se the quality parts and work witch has made this a bass build like a much more expensive one.
And i find it an easy bass to play, much because of it's nice slim neck.
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Yc
Great bass, except...
...the string spacing is really out of whack. The G string is very close to the edge of the fret board and the E has plenty space to spare, and the gap between the E and the A is much larger than between the other strings. Not bad enough for me to send it back (too much hassle from Norway, but if I had bought it locally I would have). I will have to get a new nut for sure. Since this is supposed to be an "enhanced" instrument, I'm a bit disappointed.
In all other respects it's a great bass for the price, but HB needs to pay attention to the small, but important details.
In all other respects it's a great bass for the price, but HB needs to pay attention to the small, but important details.
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