Harley Benton Solid UkeBass Sunburst

After having a Kahuna for years, I sold it immediately to buy this solid u-bass. Thomann now owns this little niche. The Uke has a good build quality and its sound is huge. Huge means monstruous, with an incredible output. All my good impressions sinked when I brought it to a rehearsal. The intonation is simple IMPOSSIBLE. Open G and fret 12 is nearly half semitone out of tune. The Kahuna wasn't perfect but was more than usable. Here the problem is drastic. So, it is going back to Thomann. If you want to risk I'd urge you to buy a set of silver wound strings altogether with the u-bass. It seems most of the times makes the intonation much better. I didn't want to take the risk.
Finally, I expected it to be more comfortable than the Kahuna but the smaller and thinner body is actually more uncomfortable, and the shorter scale too.
If you want to have a look at the very first review on YouTube I drop the link. Also I'll be able to answer any questions:
https://youtu.be/u3RhHg6O-5M

Ein Freund hat einen akustischen U-Bass mit Piezo, insofern hatte ich eine ungefähre Vorstellung was mich erwarten würde.

Ich hatte wegen der voraussichtlichen Qualitätsschwankungen zwei Exemplare bestellt.

Worin sie gleich sind:
- Sound ist fetzig, trocken und druckvoll,
- sie klingt aber auch immer etwas furzig, egal wie man die Potis dreht oder welchen Amp man anklemmt (habe über Quad Cortex gespielt),
- Verarbeitungsqualität ist mäßig, so finden sich raue Stellen am Hals, das Griffbrett könnte besser aufgeleimt sein, die Brücke erweckt nicht viel Vertrauen, muss aber auch nur Gummi halten,
- es gibt nur einen Gurt-Pin,
- zwischen Leersaite und 12. Bund liegt ein Halbton Unterschied,

Worin sie sich unterscheiden:
- eine wiegt 200 Gramm mehr als die andere,
- Saiteneinstellungen waren bei einer okay, bei der anderen ganz abseits,
- eine hat ein durchdrehendes Poti,
- die andere eine Lackmacke.

In Summe ist so ein HB U-Bass ein witziges Gimmick. Das kleine Griffbrett und die Gummi-Saiten sorgen dafür, dass man anders spielt, als man einen E-Bass mit Stahlsaiten spielen würde. Außerdem find ich es mega, wie viel Druck so ein kleines Stück Holz hergibt. Die Klangfarbe kann zB im Studio eine tolle Ergänzung sein.

Wären die Qualitätsprobleme nicht so gravierend und das Instrument bundrein, hätte ich es auch behalten. So geht es leider zurück.

I had high hopes for this Ubass being a fraction of the cost of its competitors.

I was initially not happy with this bass at all, but after making some mods am now very happy with it. The biggest issues were uneven output across strings (D and G strings were way quieter than the E and A) and poor intonation (D and G were way off pitch by the 12th fret).

I performed the infamous bridge saddle mod to physically split the bridge saddle into 4 individual pieces so each string applies it own pressure to the piezo pickup underneath -- that solved the uneven output issue. I also restrung the ubass (same Thunderblack strings that came on it) but cut to length so they only wrapped around the post a few times and werent't over wrapped (string wrapped around itself instead of the post directly whej tuned to pitch) -- the intonation is almost perfect, definitely much better then how it came from Thomann.

The above should be checked by Thomann before shipment so others don't have these issues.

I'm not a fan of how the onboard preamp sounds -- only sound I like is with both the high and low knobs turned all the way down.

I didn't purchase this thinking it would be a perfect bass but I expected it to sound decent. I tried out a similarly priced, cheap u bass from an off-brand before this that sounded really good, so I assumed this one would be similar, if not better. Unfortunately, it sounds terrible.

It's extremely muddy and buzzes quite a bit. Additionally, mines came missing one of the strap holders. So I can't even hold it comfortably. No sign of it ever being there and maybe getting knocked off. It's like they just forgot to put it on. I had high hopes of this being a bass I could carry to keep up with practice while I travel, but it sounds so bad. The bass in Youtube reviews, even negative ones, typically sound better than mines, so Im not sure if its just a defective unit. But either way, it doesn't sound great in some of those videos anyway.