Harley Benton HBO-600NT

So… i have had my share of expensive and midrange steel string acoustics and had to conclude that acoustics would never become my thing. Always trouble with hard strings, stupid bridges that was unable to intonate, impossible truss rods, too high string action…. You know what i mean….
But for this price i was prepared to try it.
First of all it pretty nice to look at, it is built ok, without impressing, but the factory strings was a waste of natural ressources. .
New strings, a slight adjusment on the truss rod and this thing plays its heart out. The action is spot on, the intonation is spot on, the weight is spot on and the tuners are actually not as bad as i feared… The craftsmanship is absolutely accepted as well as the tuners.
But the round back shape makes it extremely difficult to sit with the guitar.
The fretboard was extremely dry, but it still played very well. Easy fixed though…
The acoustic tone is very nice and clear, but if something should be opgraded it wound be the electronics. The amplification of the built in preamp is very low but it sounds ok…. Nothing fantastic but enough for home play. In the studio the acoustic tone is absolutely acceptable, but dont use the preamp….

With thin strings and a very light adjustment this cheap guitar definately has taken my heart.
All i need to do now is to polish the frets which are very rough, and sand a little on the rough wood a few places. Then we are good to go live…. Later i might upgrade the tuners.
If i miss something it should be a a tuner in the preamp section.

Giant recommandation for this absurd low price….
The four stars are for the parameters listed and i have not taken the price into consideration !!

I now have 5 Harley Bentons, and until now I have not been disappointed . Okay it’s a cheap guitar , I paid more for shipping, duty and taxes then I did for the guitar. Now normally when you pay this little for a guitar the expectations are very low and to be honest I wouldn’t even bother . However with Harley Benton I have come to just be amazed at what you get for the money, but this guitar follows the norm …not the Harley Benton norm though . First off the frets were really sharp an dirty , making the guitar almost unplayable , they were really bad , the neck was dry, and there was this blob of something on the high E string, which just ended up breaking with a 1/2 a turn of the tuner. Now I wasn’t expecting much in the way of sound due to the style , but this sounded just terrible and plays even worse. I’m hoping with a full change to some quality strings maybe to a lighter gauge 10 ‘s maybe , along with the frets filed and some neck work , it might make this a more playable guitar , otherwise it’s just going to be a wall hanger.
The finish is very nice , best thing about it unfortunately. It really is a nice looking guitar, which makes this even more disappointing . I just wish it was up to the Harley Benton quality I’ve come to love, respect and expect. O well can’t win them all.
UPDATE: After spending some time on the neck, filing , polishing and oiling then replacing the strings with Martin MA170 extra light 10-47,80/20 bronze , yes these are cheap Martin strings , but a great match with this guitar. This is now a totally different instrument , so much better and the sound is really nice, it has now gone from a wall hanger to a player.
Update 2 : pre amp quit working after about a year, almost to the day! tried new battery, nothing, even pulled it out it to see if a wire came loose, nope all good there, its just dead. Checked in with Thomann, and its just been a series of emails back and forth and then asked to send a video on the issue, I guess they need proof, okay did that. Now I wait for the outcome, stand by.
Update 3: In the spirit of being fair I have deleted previous comments and updated my review as they have shipped me a new pre amp. I now wait for it to arrive, but it took a few e mails asking for an update. In the end they stood behind the warranty which is great considering the quality of this guitar. Lets face it, in at least this case , you get what you pay for.