Harley Benton D-120CE BK

I set up budget guitars in my spare time and bought this acoustic as something of an experiment. About a year ago I bought another Harley Benton (a Les Paul gold top copy) which was pretty well made but also pretty badly set up. However, after fret-levelling, re-profiling and polishing and sorting out the action (bridge and nut) it now plays better than any other Les Paul copy I've had. On that basis I wanted to try out a HB acoustic to see if, for almost no money, I could end up with a decent instrument.

The D-120 came pretty well packed (a conventional guitar shaped box inside a large rectangular box) and felt very light. The first thing that greeted me on unwrapping was a 2mm chip to the top edge of the headstock; disappointing but for £58 not worth initiating a return for since I can drop a bit of black lacquer in there to fill anyway.

First impressions when unpacked were how light and how thin the construction of this guitar is (even by comparison with my 2002 Fender CD60). It's very black and very shiny but in patches the lacquer is so thin you can see the wood grain through it. It wouldn't take much to wear through to the wood sadly. A quick all-over check revealed a decent-looking instrument; 20 frets on a nice shaped neck, basic sealed tuners, lousy Chinese strings, a little EQ unit (9v battery supplied!) and a jackplug input socket that was loose. That is a REAL hassle on a guitar like this. Getting a hand or tool inside there to hold the internal part of the jack socket still while tightening down on the outside is going to be a challenge. Enough now to send back and request another one? Mmmm. Still no. It's too much hassle and I'm sure I can sort it out - but both this and the chipped headstock are basic quality control issues that should have been sorted and which could really spoil this guitar for someone without the experience and confidence to fix it themselves.

To my surprise the action on this guitar is not too bad straight out of the box. The tuners are 'all or nothing' and sticky but kind of work. The frets are awfully finished and scratchy as hell meaning string bends leave you wincing (but I can take care of that). But here's the thing: despite its several little faults, this thing is playable straight out of the box. It sounds pretty good acoustically and even better when plugged into my amp (which I have to say ISN'T a dedicated acoustic guitar amp).

So for £58 plus £10 postage what you get is a lightweight electro-acoustic guitar that plays better than almost anything else you're likely to find for so little money (apart from getting lucky and finding a second hand Fender or Vintage acoustic locally via eBay or Gumtree). This Harley Benton confirms my previous HB experience: these are great guitars IF you are able to put right the small niggling problems AND do some thorough set up work (including fret levelling & dressing). Otherwise this is still not a bad first guitar for a learner for almost no money - certainly far better than the all-too-common first 'acoustic' guitar that turns out to be an unplayable and cheap classical :-)

Almost no diffrent then 1 of the big boys 2nd tier brands enter level aj's.

Again mine arived in 5 days here in canada with my TE-52 well packed in aug 2016 from thomann.

At this price point you cant expect perfection & as in other reviews on it its true. Mine arived with bad frets, dirty fingerboard & the strings where also VERY discustingly dirty/coroated o.O ... QC check on mine was not great sorry to say.

That said IF you have the tools/supplies & knowledge a light fret job, cleaning of strings & fingerboard brought the guitar into great playability !!

That said:

Pro:
- Sound system is great & worth the cost itself !! Sounds great through my vypyr vip 2's acoustic patches.
- body materials seem solid & true making for nice acoustic voicing/output when given some tlc.

Con:
- small crack in binding on bottom left corner of fret board
- paint starting to show some flaws after this long
- plastic bridge saddle or saddle slot cut incorrectly but again doesnt affect playability.
- dirty fret board, bad fret job, frets to small (jumbo's would be great on this)
- dirty strings (once cleaned with string cleaner sounded/felt good)

Despite the con's (not worth attempting to return for new unit) ... this guitar is easy to play, nice voicing.

IF you got one with these without the cons or knew how to fix it yourself or for cheap its a great deal take it from me whoms a home player/hobbiest player !!

I must say, I would consider a higher tiered one after my experiences with this one.