Harley Benton B-650FL BK Progressive Series

Amazingly inexpensive and fun instrument. Very minor setup needed. I don't play it daily or gig it and it's held up very well for a year now. Active/passive switch is a nice plus you don't always get.

The pickups and electronics are a little strange. Neck and bridge pickups almost sound the same. It's not great, not terrible a sound, but I'd expect some range. It's also very hard to find replacements.

Bridge is lacking some intonation range and it's even harder to find replacements for. I haven't bothered.

The body is a bit sharp edged and not the most stylish. Black is an extremely boring colour as well. It balances and plays reasonably, though.

Over all a very positive new experience which I keep playing with occasionally.

Got this instrument in summer-autumn of 2018. Got better basses since then, but still keep coming to this one few times a week to practice (mostly unplugged) - it just feels great. Maybe good flatwounds add to the feel (stringed with around-half-the-bass-price Thomastik JF 346 - they don't feel loose and even kinda growl (open E, low-B) on this bass when unplugged).

Pros:
- price: can you find cheaper fretless that doesn't fall apart in your hangs and requires almost zero maintenance (except truss-rod adjustments) for a couple of years?
- build quality: instrument feels solid, nothing's loose, everything can be set up just fine - quite low action, intonation, neck relief / truss-rod etc
- very comfortable and pleasant feel-wise: some people complain about neck dive - did not even notice that even when playing standing (maybe not all the pieces of wood are equal)
- narrow string spacing: matter of taste, but I really like that (and IMO it makes sense for fretless as it's mostly played fingerstyle)
- smooth fingerboard: no pores at all (have another fretless with panga panga and it's a really big deal)
- powerful fat lows: long notes or staccato ones - even uncompressed homemade direct input recording sounds nice and fat in the mix

Non-irritating cons / notes:
- tuners feel cheap, but do their job: some tuners "slide" a bit before string actually starts moving
- nut is not "slippery" enough even for flats: need to pull/stretch the string while tuning or it can go slightly flat after a couple of relatively aggressive plucks
- fingerboard feels quite "soft" and easy to scratch, I suggest stringing it with flats from the day one

Cons:
- clarity/midrange: not enough clarity in lower register - you can hear some midrange-y overtones unplugged, but they're not picked up when plugged; fast riffing / galloping in lower registers sounds muddy and indistinguishable; haven't tried that with rounds though (but I think it wouldn't improve it much - IMO, pickups are to blame)
- pickups/electronics can clip the signal if you're digging into strings quite hard - IMO, worth replacing, the bass itself is well-built and resonates fine - just need to overcome the mental barrier to pour basically as much as this entire bass costs for normal (not the best) pickups
- built-in EQ is... Meh. Don't think you can make the bass sound better with it (even the opposite), so it's pretty much useless; better play with pickup balance instead

TL;DR: very usable bass with some minor issues.

I kind of missed having a fretless, even though my current band has little use for one. This one seemed to fit the bill nicely and wouldn't break the bank. After a few days my conclusions are as follows:

- Fit & Finish: I can't really fault it in any way. The paint has no flaws, the neck feels nice and smooth.

- Sound: overall very usable. The stock strings suck and were immediately replaced by proper ones. I like passive mode somewhat better than active, but the passive tone control has very little effect and is next to useless.

- Setup and hardware: The bridge feels like it's made from hard pastic but does the job. It's a candidate for upgrading though. The nut suffered a minor malfunction when I replaced the strings: the end at the B string broke off. The string stayed in place and I was able to glue it back, so no biggie for now, but definitely an upgrade candidate. The fretboard is super smooth and feels good to the touch. I could set the action fairly low without any issues. Setting intonation also was easy. Accessing the truss rods requires removal of the strings. I prefer having the truss rod access at the body end. The rods operate smoothly and effectively. The tuners also feel kind of plastic-y but work as expected.

So far I like the bass. For 160 euro you can't really expect it to be perfect in every way, and you should factor in some 30 to 40 euro for proper strings, but then for 200 euro you get a very usable package. I think I'll keep it around for a bit...