Harley Benton MV-5PJ Natural

Bardzo dobry instrument nawet nie w swojej kategorii cenowej to po prostu bardzo dobry instrument.
Poprzednie gitary basowe HB odesłałem bo były tragiczne. Założyłem sobie, że jeśli tym razem kolejny bass od HB będzie tragiczny to nigdy więcej już nie zamówię. Tym razem jednak jestem pod wrażeniem tego instrumentu. Brzmienie struny B, wykonanie, wygoda, waga. Może jedynie na co bym się zdecydował to drewno jesion, klon na podstrunnicy i typowy jazz bass, tylko dlatego, że są to jedynie moje preferencje. Być może zmienię pickupy i dołożę kolejny pickup single coil. Poza tym wszystko się zgadza🤝

So... this morning I was able to extensively compare the Harley Benton PJ-75 (€199 and with a free Thomann gig bag worth €22) and the Harley Benton MV-5PJ (€249 without a gig bag, so €71 more expensive in total).
And the verdict is pretty clear.
I actually really wanted to like the PJ-75 more because it is cheaper, lighter (poplar vs. alder body), and has a P-width nut (45mm) as opposed to the jazz-width nut on the MV5 (43mm), but the MV5-PJ just sounds much better.
The Roswell pickups in the cheaper HB PJs simply sound very muddy in the low end and thin in the high end, whereas the HBZ pickups in the MV5 can easily keep up with expensive aftermarket pickups.
In my opinion, the alder body of the MV5 also adds a bit more definition compared to the poplar body of the PJ-75.
All in all, the MV5 sounds like a bass that is a few hundred euros more expensive than the PJ75, which more than justifies the €70 price difference; so the more expensive bass wins in this case.
I also had the cheapest and most expensive of the range in my possession for a while (the matte black PJ5 @€149 and the active enhanced MP5 @€349), and regarding those two, the PJ5 came close to the PJ-75 in terms of sound, with the difference mainly in the looks and finish (although that difference was minimal).
The most expensive one in the range looked a bit like the Sandberg MV basses, but given that it arrived with a broken pre-amp and therefore couldn't produce a decent sound, I didn't include it in my review.
Overall, the finish was reasonably good, although with all basses in this series you probably want to have the frets crowned to remove the sharp edges; otherwise, the fretwork was quite good, and I didn't see much difference in that regard between the cheapest and most expensive basses.
In my opinion, the MV-5 is the best buy of the four due to the significant difference in the quality of the pickups, truss rod wheel, luminlay side dots, and alder body, and that is the bass I decided to keep as a backup bass. However, with a pickup swap, the cheaper basses are certainly o.k. for the money too.

Overall really impressed with the build quality and the sound. The materials and build quality feel like they belong on a way more expensive bass. Low B sounds good as well.

Just some slight room for improvement:
However, the frets can be filed better as you can feel that it's sticking out just a bit when you run your hands down the neck.

String spacing measures 18mm between the center of each string on mine, not 20mm as stated.

Bajo muy bien construido, no encuentro fallos en el barniz, trastes en buenas condiciones no siento necesidad de limar nada, venía bien ajustado de fabrica, no había trasteos y la acción era cómoda. El sonido de las pastillas es bueno, quizás no el mejor pero estamos hablando de un bajo de 250€. Las únicas pegas que le pongo: mástil un poco grueso, si bien vengo de un jazz bass Sire, por eso no es comparable. Finalmente tras unos días haciéndome a él me resulta cómodo. Por otro lado las clavijas de afinación, van un poco blandas, pero sorprendentemente mantienen la afinación bien, así que aunque no sean las mejores son funcionales, no me gustó el detalle de que el protector del mecanismo sea de plástico, pensé que sería metálico pero ni lo es. Por lo demás un buen bajo para iniciarse en las 5 cuerdas, que es para lo que lo quería.