Harley Benton RB-414CS Classic Series

The bass guitar is very well made, everything works as it should. But, it didn't play as it should, the neck pickup was practically inaudible, the bridge pickup, it was very noisy!! Due to the very decent price, I did not complain about the bass, I dismantled the electronics and in approx. two days I identified and repaired the fatal defects in the connection. For example: 1. on a three-pole switch instead of a live conductor, a shield was connected!
2. on the output connector of the guitar "jack" there was a shielded wire connected in place of the live connector! 3. the output wire from the sensors was casually connected between the potentiometers. 4. It was necessary to fly away these errors, replace the output wire with a new longer one to reach the switch pin-connector. 5. The bridge-bridge was screwed in place with 4 screws, only two, so I fixed this defect. Overall, the guitar is great now, but the electronics were literally sloppy. Now the guitar plays as it should be balanced and the corrections react as they should. I did not send the guitar as a complaint, because I control electronics, and I was curious where the defects were!!! So the exhaust check was obviously not done. Due to these defects, it is possible that this good and reasonably priced guitar will be unnecessarily claimed by clients for careless finishing operations.
Because I am really satisfied with the guitar and the repair was successful, I give full points despite this shortcoming!!!
Regards, Thonann.

Wow what a stunning looking, and nice sounding bass!
Build quality itself is excellent! Flawlessly finished! Front and back!

Pickups work well and sound pretty good! There is a fair bit of disparity between them, but they aren't crappy. DOES it sound like a 'Ric'? Not very, but it's kinda there. It's not a slavish copy by any means!

The bridge pick up is quite bright but scooped sounding, but it's nice & punchy!
The neck THUDS! Serious low frequencies put out by it, however I think it is a bit too 'dark' sounding! But if you WANT thump and low end rumble, its got it in spades!

Now, the rub! The nut on mine, is prefectly cut to the right height, NO probs there. Tuners work well! Frets are nicely installed.

The BRIDGE assembly, while nice & solid & high mass, does NOT allow for enough lowering of the playing action! The neck pitch is too shallow! While it IS back angled, it is slight! * NOTE TO THOMANN: Do a redesign of the neck pocket to increace the neck pitch a few more degrees! *

To overcome this, I will have to GRIND down at least 2mm off the bottom of each saddle, + the groove on the rollers that sit on top to lower the bridge by at least 3mm! I have screwed the plate & grub screws all the way down, & while it did help, it is still too high for really comfortable playing! A bit disapointed about that aspect!

The bridge design itself is pretty good otherwise! It's good and solid! What you NEED for good energy transfer from the strings to the body!

AFTER I get the saddle blocks and rollers lowered, only THEN can I determine IF any frets also need levelling after!

KEEP this in mind if you are thinking of purchasing this bass.If you LIKE a really low action, you will NOT get this out of the box!

Sorry HB, while a beautiful bass, this model is a bit hit & miss!
Cheers!

I have a love-hate relationship with this guitar.

I love the design, as it is very clearly inspired by a certain other guitar. Compared to the stylized aesthetic of its source of inspiration, the subdued headstock and more symmetric body shape give it a more grounded vibe that I prefer. The dark color of the neck and headstock provide a nice contrast to the body's bright sunburst, white pickguard, and shiny chrome bridge. Granted, my sunburst is more of an orange-golden-tobacco than the depicted orange-cherry-red but I love it all the same. As a whole, this charming instrument looks like it came straight out of the 1960's.

The bass needed a setup on arrival, but after a few adjustments, it was very playable. As its description promises, the combination of a mini-humbucker and a single-coil pickup allows it to produce a diverse range of sounds, from growly, trebly highs to warm, punchy lows. My only gripe is that the pickup cover was a nuisance that I quickly removed, but aside from that, it's wonderfully versatile.

My problem with this bass is that the manufacturer's lack of quality control gives this thing an unpolished feel. The pickguard felt a bit rough around the edges, and there were flecks of white plastic where it was cut. The black outlines that run along the binding sloppily fades as it runs along the edges of the body, and there is a natural dark mark in the wood on the front that I'm not too fond of; could they not have used a different cut of wood? There was also a rough texture in the finish on one side of the neck where it meets the body, in addition to slight traces of what looked like white glop on the edges of one or two frets. I really wish that the factory did more to address these before they were shipped out.

The bridge is another issue as well, which has a proprietary design that echoes the guitar it's inspired by, but it's done to a fault. The bridge includes two knurled head screws that serve no actual purpose, and actually gets in the way of the E and G saddles. Replacement parts are also not easy to come by, should you lose any part of those tiny two-piece saddles. For all of its faults though, it's not horrible; in fact, it feels sturdy, the saddle slots are cut to match the fretboard radius, and it does look the part. Maybe this is a good thing because since it's shaped to this bass's 34" (864 mm) scale, it's also impossible to find an aftermarket bridge that doesn't compromise the aesthetic, and even if I were to get a different shape, there's still the matter of patching up the two screw holes that hold the stock bridge in place.

Despite its cons, the pros outweigh them enough for me to recommend it. For the price, you are getting an excellent bass that plays well, sounds good, looks good, and has decent hardware. I really wish the factory had done a little more work to polish out rough spots, but aside from that, it's an excellent instrument.

It’s a beautiful bass, with really great tone right out of the box. Pretty decent setup for the most part. I however got a bit unlucky and got one with not the greatest fret leveling. I like my action pretty low, and I can’t get there due to 5 high frets especially on the E string. No problem for me as I will just do a fret leveling and re-crown. On a bass this price I expected something like this. Just be aware if you don’t have the skills to do this, you might have to pay someone to do it for you. It’s worth it to me since it’s a real looker. The finish and edge binding is wonderful, and no sharp fret edges. The sound is very good, especially the neck pickup, huge and ballsy. One last thing of note is that the electronics are a bit of a mystery. There are some strange oddities with how the pickups work together with volume and tone controls. I have to open her up and check out what is going on. However I get a great Geddy tone with both tones up full and the bridge pickup rolled off slightly and the neck full.
Update: I determined why the Rick tone is not quite there. The pickup placement is off a few cm from the Rick as they are both moved towards the bridge. The bridge pickup is approx 1.1cm closer to the bridge, and the neck pickup is 2 cm closer to the bridge. Not only that the more important thing is that the stock Rick pickup spacing of 11.2cm, but on this bass it’s narrower, at 10.2cm. I fixed this by converting the humbucker pickup to single coil using the coil closest to the neck, now the spacing is correct at 11.2cm, much improving the tone and thump by getting the phase of the pickups right on.

This is a very nice bass! It really sounds close to the classic model it was inspired from. With a few effects (a little bit of drive and a fast tremolo), it feels like a Chris Squire tone.
I found 2 minor inconveniences, that might just be on my particular unit:
-There is a bit more ground hum than other basses with the same amp rig.
-There is a small notch on the top of the neck, at the 19th fret. It's hard to see but can be felt with a finger, but this is not a place where you would put your fingers anyway.
Otherwise, the neck is very well adjusted out of the box and frets are well cut / filed, no issue there.
Overall, I'm very happy

After a long wait, my HB RB-414CS finally arrived! This is a great looking bass. Very nice finish - almost flawless. I only found 1 tiny bubble in the clear-coating, on the back of the neck, near the binding. That's it. No other flaws in the finish or painted areas. The cut of wood for the body on mine has a dark streak, which affects the sunburst. It has a weird dark-to-light-to-dark streak across the top end which makes it look like it has a racing stripe. Originally, I thought I might have to take it to my luthier for a setup, but it is very playable out of the box. Maybe needs a tiny tweak with the truss rod. I need to see how it settles in its new climate. It came with low action, easy to play. No high frets, no buzzing. The gloss coating on the neck is not as sticky as others have pointed out. I may take some steel wool to it at some point, but is fine for now.
All in all. Very happy with this bass. It looks fantastic and sounds great, and very high quality for the price!

Changes: I will remove the pickup cover, which gets in the way sometimes with my style of playing. New strings of course. I have some gear tuners that I will add on at some point. and maybe some strap locks. I have a zero mod thumb rest from a rick that fits. Not perfectly flush with the pick guard, but close enough.

My assessment: If this bass is in stock, get one!

This was my first electric bass purchase from Thomann. I had no hesitation in choosing Thomann for this purchase as I was delighted in their service from previous other purchases.
I took a good two weeks looking around at the various options. When I came upon the Harley Benton RB -414CS my mind was instantly made up. I’ve always wanted a real RB but like many am unable to afford one. Having read all the reviews from happy customers all I had to do was chose the colour! To be honest I loved them both and would have been happy either way. The black model reminded me of Bruce Foxton’s iconic bass in The Jam but in the end I went for the sunburst. The package was delivered in good time to my workplace as I didn’t want to be out and miss this exciting delivery. Straight out of the box I was amazed at the build quality, looks and great value for money. As this was my first bass purchase I was quite apprehensive as to what I was getting. I need not have been! My bass had been pre-checked and quality control checked by Steven at Thomann. I was especially impressed by the playing action which needed no adjustment at all. The tone options are perfect; switching easily from that trade mark RB rock drive to the more “less toppy” mellow options. I also ordered the gig bag package which was a great way of both saving money and protecting my investment. I was very impressed with the bag; again extremely well manufactured and plenty of storage areas and padding to keep me happy. This bass looks fantastic is amazing value for money! Couldn’t be happier 👍🏻😊

Summary: A beautiful instrument which I enjoy very much.

However, it does have its weak points. They don't matter to me (see the update below, though), but if any of these are significant to you, you may want to reconsider.

The bass came with perfect setup, both intonation and action. The PUs
and the electronics provide a good range of tones that are angled more
at rock rather than jazz (but you'd probably tend to go fretless for the
latter, anyway).

The tuning machines are so-so. They hold the tuning very well, but they
have a lot of "latency", meaning that you can turn them for quite a way
(roughly 1/4th of a turn) before they take effect.

The finish is near perfect over all, but is a little rough on the insides
of the cut-aways. The neck is on the thinner side (suits me well), if you
want to get a real handful, that's not it. A few of the frets have
sharpish edges, but can be easily filed down.

It is perfectly balanced on a strap; sitting down it has a small tendency
for neck-dive.

The nut is cheap, but cut well. The bridge, though, leaves me scratching
my head. Works well enough as delivered, but trying to understand how it
works makes me want to change it for something more standard, and shouldyou want to put stronger strings on (comes with .040 to .100), well...

Quite a few caveats, I know. Don't get me wrong, these are for those who
expect a cheap Rickenbacker copy, which the bass is not. I love it for its
strengths: easy to handle and very good sounds. A good bass, regardless
of price.

Update about a year later: That bridge again... Whoever designed that must hate performing musicians. When changing the strings, the saddle parts fall of as soon as you tilt the guitar. God forbid a string breaking on stage! You'll never find that small part again, and I don't think they are sold seperately (not even the entire bridge). Go get another, perhaps even original, part. I therefore deduct one more star from quality.

I bought this Bass strictly because of its similarity to the overall look of a Rickenbacker. I've owned several Ric Basses & Guitars (& even a small Ric practice amp!) over the years. After reviewing many online videos featuring this Bass, I purchased it even though it was back ordered up to 15 weeks. Fortunately it only took 12-ish to arrive. Since then I've customized it to my liking such as removing the treble PU cover, changed out the knobs & selector switch cap (everything accented in red), added an aftermarket thumb-rest, changed over to flat-wound strings, etc., etc. It is not my goal to have this Bass "sound" like a Ric. It's a great sounding instrument all on its own. Perhaps in years to come other companies or individuals will try their best to sound like MY Harley Benton! ;)

Right out the box first impressions paint looks amazing, the binding around the body is i think 4 layers done really well. Single ply binding around fret board done really well the frets don't stick past the binding no sharp edges it has a set neck which is. Super nice.the toaster pickup sounds deep and full the bridge pick up sounds awesome just a lil more treble then the eck.the switch and knobs seem solid. The only trouble i had was the trust rod needed a lil adjustment but that's to be expected i live in Detroit Michigan and it's cools over all great bass unbelievable price I'd definitely recommend it to anyone beginner or veteran you won't be disappointed