You Should NOT Buy This Harley Benton Bass! Harley Benton PB-20 SBK Review 

Just got this bass delivered. No hum or strange noise. Intonation and string height spot on. Tuned it to pitch. All is well and working.

Got myself a HB PJ-20 SBK recently and the grounding was fine. Also, it was intonated perfectly. The only issue I had was with the solder joints on the pots, which were a bit lacking and when I turned to volume for the J pickup all the way, it would disconnect briefly. Nothing my tech couldn't fix. Also, I have a TE-20 HH in the same color scheme that I upgraded with new pickups and it plays beautifully. My one and only gripe with HB is that the QC is hit and miss, and on the cheaper models a setup is 100% needed.

This video really helped! I bought a HB TB-70 and had the same issue on the bridge with the paint. It was honestly driving me crazy but this has helped me fix the issue, Thanks!!

It's a £100 or thereabouts bass! I agree, the detail about grounding the bridge should not happen, it's so basic... but then it's super easy to fix in 5 minutes. I bought one a couple of years ago, it was £89 then. There were some sharp fret edges too, which again took 10 minutes to go over. With cheaper instruments I think you need to manage your expectations and be prepared to do a little setup work. It turns out to be a pretty nice sounding Precision bass, light weight too. For ~£100 and maybe 20 minutes of my time. Let that sink in. This is a bass I would gig, I just don't because I prefer a 5 string Stingray, but there's nothing wrong with it. I also have their passive 5-string Stringray style MB5 SBK, same finish... similar kind of situation. Now, that one I have used quite a bit for rehearsals and live. It's not as good as the Stingray 5, but it sounds good and feels great (it's a very light bass too). It's probably the bass I'll take to my New Years Eve gig: travelling, overnight stay, general mayhem... Yeah, the Harley Benton MB5 will do just fine and I won't have to worry too much about the party getting out of hand ;) That one was £125. So I had to smoothen the fret ends and adjust a few things... big deal. :)

I am with you here, excellent review, many thanks ;)

Hey ! I was searching for a bass only to use in studio, i am not a bass player, i just need it to record. And i was wondering, your review is great, but it seems that this earth problem comes from the paint job, so if we take the same model, with a regular painting, would it be the same ? Do you think the same bass without the earth problem would be worth it ?

I have the black/white version of it and no problem at all :) But then again, that's a chrome bridge :)

Mine needed new strings, made it sound like a new guitar. Also had to regrouped the bridge. Then it was for a long time my main gigging bass. Such great value. Buy it.

Honestly if to do is unstring and hit the string ferrule points with a countersink or just a drill bit or file to make contact , that's minimal work for an oversight that they should have dealt with. I'd have it unstrung and apart to put copper shielding in anyhow. 3-4 min extra work nothing more. also I'd be putting a pickguard sticker over that toriseshell anyhow. that vintage brown on a matte black instument was a poor chice. (you didnt need to scratch the body of the bridge just where the strings hit, youll get continuity thru the bridge under the paint.)

Iv bought on recently....i didnt have a problem with the earth...but the neck was like a bannana and i cant get it to intonate properly!!

This is not a general problem with the black Harley benton bridges, but occurs with some of them. With this bass, for example, it's the first time I've heard of the problem occurring. I haven't seen any other reviews where this has also been noted, whether at Thomann directly or on other sites.

1) I have just received the short-scale black-and-white PB-Shorty. I didn't have a 30" bass yet. I like it! 2) I didn't hear any ground noise, but then my "reception test" involved a Boss Dual Cube Bass LX amp on battery power. 3) Another noise-cancelling approach could be: going wireless. - Me, I keep two sets of cheap wireless sets charged. (The ones that sport the model identification "A8", regardless of the brand.)

I just wonder how the Epiphone Thunderbird compares to the Harley Benton version of it.

ez just get a di box or a noise gate and ur good to go

All issues aside- after the fix, it sounds great. For that price, I would upgrade the pickup and hardware.

I purchased this bass and it arrived with a poorly set neck - the action is way too high with the bridge saddles bottomed out. The fret sprout on the treble side of the neck was 1/16" : the finish was ruined the mitre treble side of the neck, not to mention the sharp fret ends and damage to the fingers. I was a repeat customer and this is how Thomann treated me: they claim these defects are 'acceptable' on this bass. They refused return/refund and encouraged me to sell it locally (pass it on to some other sucker). Please buy your gear from anywhere but Thomann.

So what do you recommend you just say buy something better, but you dont recommend anything bro, for that price what do you recommend then?

That Harley Benton guy is a brilliant instrument designer, always nice to have to actively damage a brand new instrument to get it to operate properly. Ass long as it looks cool right?

WHAT?! It must be you.

P-basses are NOT for beginners/rusty players.

Купил 85мм..прекрасный инструмент. Тактильно и по звуку

Nonsense. This is a 100$ guitar. If people are just starting they can learn to setup a bass while learning to play it. Every guitarist should know how to setup their guitar.