Harley Benton PJ-75 VW Vintage Series

The sound is perfect for any style of music. If you use two pickups at once with an open tone, then the sound is like Ibanez sr305 (imho)
The tone of this bass can be very aggressive or soft.

Suitable for both a beginner bassist and professional musicians (but for studio recording, you will have to replace the pickups with some seymour duncan).

Came out of the box tuned to the scale. The height of the strings suits me as well (Under 1st fret <1mm under 12th fret 2.5mm), but maybe I'll lower it a bit because it's a little difficult to play.

The bass is in perfect condition, no noticeable chips, no scratches. Of course, if you look closely, then there will be small ones, but they will also be on expensive instruments with a price above $ 1,500.

Analogues in local music stores (in Kazakhstan) are 4 times more expensive, so this is an ideal option for all musicians.
Even if you are a guitarist, you can buy this bass for such a good price for fun.
Ребята из Казахстана и стран СНГ! Не переживайте о том что что-то пойдёт не так, всё было отлично. Я тоже сначала думал что такого быть не может - "отличный бас и за такую цену?", думал что придут дрова, но инструмент оказался отличный и по факту придираться тут и не к чему. Так что заказывайте и кайфуйте!

I'll jump straight to the point.

The bass is a very nice sounding PJ, with a quite good low B, especially considering the price. However, in my case, the bass came with uneven frets, needed a shim and the nut was high. There was also a bent potentiometer but that was fixed easily.

Fit and finish were beautiful. Apart from a couple of very, VERY minor spots which would be someone being nitpicky, the bass is perfect in that regard. No paint/clear runs, no uneven surfaces, the back of the neck is finished beautifully, all in all, great.

The sound is also one of its very good qualities. The Roswell pickups on this will not need an upgrade. They are classic examples of alnico pickups, perhaps a tad on the hot side but nothing excessive. Sweet sounding and perfectly balanced, without sanding harsh in any setting.

Now the setup and quality control on that regard, which should be the most important -playability- was very, VERY poor.
First off was the need for a shim. The saddles couldn't get low enough to accomodate even medium action. And it needed a relatively substantial shim, too.

Next up was the frets, which was the worst part. The neck was thankfully not warped but, looking at the frets, you'd think it was! This was unacceptable in what's supposed to be on the more upscale PJ model. Even after the shim, you'd get buzzing all over and especially on the higher part of the neck, since the last few frets were incredibly high.
Sadly, it needed leveling and crowning since this wasn't a case of a couple of frets just popping up.
Really, REALLY BAD quality control on this one.

Other than that, the nut was also cut very high and the slots were apparently cut for lower gauge strings, too. It wasn't terrible but it needed filing to be set up correctly.

Thomann of course offers a no-hassle refund but at that point, I did the work myself.

Now, AFTER shimming, nut filing and doing fretwork, I must admit it plays beautifully but you can't expect everyone to be able to do their own fretjob.

I must also mention that it's quite light for a PJ fiver. At just shy of 4kg, it's just nice, especially compared to a lot of heavy Sires, for example.

Would I recommend this one? Yes. It's a nice sounding and nice playing bass. If you can do the work yourself, moreso. Still, even if you can't, If you get a lemon, Thomann will replace it and it's still a very nice bass. Not just for the money, either. A nice bass, period.

I love this bass! I've heard lots of stories about how great these basses are so I decided to try one out myself. I got it for noodling at home and occasional recording.

I plugged it in an played it along with two songs...one with just the neck pickup and one with the neck pickup at full and bridge pickup at about 40%...and I was floored in both cases. It has a very meaty, full mid tone that both sits very well in a mix but also stands out. Mixed tones are also fantastic, and the low B string absolutely sings. This bass is very hot, and I'm still kind of surprised it's not active. It just sounds lovely.

It's very playable, and the fit and finish are well above what you'd expect for a bass in this price range. The neck is a thick baseball bat of a neck but it's also very stable. Once the bass was acclimated to the temp in my house, all I had to do to finish setup was to tune it and set the action. Neck relief was spot on.

The only con I'd have so far is that it has a fair bit of neck dive, but that can always be offset by a thicker strap. I absolutely recommend this bass to anyone.

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.