Harley Benton CLD-15MCE SolidWood

The guitar arrived in mint condition and set up almost perfectly!

Playability:
Every single frett plays without buzz, the fretboard is straight, smooth and comfortable to play without sharp edges.

Sound:
This is a solid wood guitar, meaning that the sound gets better as it ages. Full Mahogany on a dreadnought body shape makes a brilliant bluesy tone, with strong projection and blends well in the mix with other instruments. I can't comment on the piezo pickup, as I haven't plugged it in and I prefer the sound of magnetic pickups in general.

Quality:
Wood selection and craftsmanship are excellent, vintage open tuners work and look great, and overall quality of materials used is that of a higher priced instrument. The matte finish is beautiful and adds to the overall vintage character of the guitar.

The only things that are left to be desired by this guitar in my opinion, are a preaplied heel strap button and a little lower string height, but at this price point can't really complain. Taking this guitar to a luthier for some minor adjustments will add a bit more cost, if you are not comfortable or miss the tools to do it your self, but it can make it's playability as good as guitars double (or even more) the price!

Totally satisfied by this product and highly recommend it!!

Had this guitar for a few months now and for the money, it's the best acoustic I've come across. Although, bear in mind, I've not tried all of HB's guitars just yet! Been eyeing up their j200 copy next!
-Sounds lovely. Very warm, as you would expect from a mahogany-built guitar, so those after something a bit brighter and crisper might want to look at something else. Nice and boomy where needed through all the ranges as you might expect from a dreadnought.
-Contruction's brilliant. Great quality wood, nice fretwork. Action's a touch high for me, especially when coming from my Sire S7 which has a super low action but can obviously be adjusted to taste. Nice tuners and the wood's beautiful in different light, lovely grain.

-Overall I gave it 5/5 due to the fantastic value all round. There are obviously better guitars out there but you'd be looking at paying 10x the price or more to get a really noticeable difference in sound quality. My dream guitar, the Gibson j200 is eye wateringly expensive at over 5k!!
Great for beginners to start on as you'd be buying something that's great quality at not too expensive a price and will last a while. You can grow into it without that initial outlay some might think they need to get started when learning guitar.

Overall, I am happy with this guitar. The wood is beautiful. The fretboard feels good, and could use some oil, which I typically do automatically. The guitar was packaged nicely, in a sculpted box with padding, inside a shipping box with more padding. That padding was a bit minimal because the box was full of other items, and the guitar was at the very bottom, against the outside of the shipping box. It looks like the box was hit with the point of a forklift or similar while in transit overseas. The damage went through the outside box, through the guitar box, and only very slightly damaged the guitar (cosmetic only). I think if this were shipped by some other companies, the guitar would likely have been destroyed. However, customer service made it right, so I am pleased.

My students love the guitar and beg to play it, even when they should be doing other work. I was excited to check out the open vintage tuners, but they feel very tight, and not very accurate. I might replace them. They do look good, though. I'm hoping they'll break in over time, because we haven't had the guitar for very long yet. It's not an immediate or big concern. I could certainly leave them and they'd be functional.

Ordered this based on my experience of owning the HB GS mini, the Traveller Steel and had few Tele copies. They are all great guitars. I decided I wanted to treat myself to a nice electro- acoustic so I went for the CLD-15MCE. Some reviewers say theirs came fully set up but mine had quite a high action. Fortunately I have done some truss rod adjustments in the past and after a few tweaks I had lowered it to a more playable string height. Ideally I would like to get the guitar into a luthier to optimise it but it's pretty good as is. As far as the sound goes- this is a lovely guitar. It is a big step up from the GS mini which is a nice guitar itself. I would never have the budget for the Martin version so this will be great until I win the lottery. The pickup/ tuner system seems to work very well too. I had a good look round the guitar when it arrived and could not find fault except the action.