I'm considering this Harley Benton as a rainy day purchase some time, 99% because of the cool looks:
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Beyond that I've got nothing! Every acoustic bass I've tried has been a frustrating experience. They just won't go as loud or as bright as I would like, they are large to the point of being goofy, those bronze bass strings are disgusting under the fingers and the action is always stiff, high and generally horrendous. They sound like a bass with a head cold when unplugged, and you have to rely on the crappy quacky, shrill piezo pickup to get any tone out of it; which tends to be a brittle, biting and inconsistent tone that has nothing 'acoustic' about it. And if you have to plug the sodding thing in then what is the point? They aren't necessarily that light, you are tethered to outboard equipment for anybody to hear you, you risk feedback from the top getting all excitable... the worst potential elements of normal electric basses (unplayable action, poor weight and ergonomics) with the worst elements of acoustic guitars (cumbersome, fragile, ungainly, poor plugged-in performance, feedback risk, uneven string response from under-saddle pickups).
I detest piezo pickups anyway. Going out to the pub gets ruined about 50% of the time because it happens to be Open Mic Night. This always translates into some skinny jeans lad playing strummy campfire chords on a guitar with a cheap piezo pickup. It is like having a biro stabbed into your ear. All plasticky, nasal, with woofy unconstrained low end flab and shattering high end. Ironic when acoustic music is meant to be more relaxed and intimate in nature. If I ever went in for this sort of gig I would take my Telecaster and simply play it without any drive or distortion. It is a richer and more rewarding tone. Likewise where you might consider using an acoustic bass, just take along a P bass and lay off the drive!
In short I consider acoustic basses to be a cute idea, but porting the technology of one instrument straight over to another doesn't necessarily make the best sense. There are expensive acoustic basses out there that don't simply look like obese acoustic guitars, because some brains went into their design. These instruments reproduce the true fundamentals and proper harmonic overtones of the strings, at a reliable and consistent volume. They also cost a lot of money and look markedly different. The cheaper stuff simply has all of the novelty factor, but none of the execution or performance.
