Harley Benton Custom Line CLD-1048SCE NS

I'm a guitarist who makes my own recordings in my home studio. I mostly play a 6 string electric guitar, and occasionally, I use an acoustic when recording a backing track. I bought this guitar because of the wide nut, it gives me the ability to play clean chords at last after approximately 55 years of playing. This is one of the very few affordable options at a reasonable price.

The guitar was really well packaged, double boxed and air filled plastic pockets around to keep inner box to lessen the possibility of transit damage. Delivery time was quick from Germany to my door in England, I ordered on Monday and received on Friday.

I was pleasantly surprised with playability of this guitar, intonation and string height (action) were correct. I did drill into the curved underside of the neck heel and fitted a strap button, as I've always felt uncomfortable playing with a strap that attaches close to the tuners. A factory fitted strap button would have been very welcome there. I would also have preferred a factory fitted scratch plate, but they are readily available and easy to fit.

The build quality and choice of woods is good for a guitar of this price, although the fret ends would have benefited from some polishing. They are not too harsh, but lack the nice smooth feel of some of the more expensive guitars.

The acoustic sound was very nice, bass notes and high notes cut through nicely. For the electrics, I played through an Art Studio V3 to my PC with a Presonus Audiobox 18/18 interface to Senheiser HD380 headphones. The on board Fishman system does alright, it's a budget system and performs well enough. An extensive range of highs and lows are available through the bass and treble knobs, and can be adjusted from very muddy through to very shrill with a decent range of acceptable sounds in between. I found that I must remember to turn off the on board tuner, as it does not switch itself off, as I discovered when I noticed we had a new green light in our room around 6 hours after using the guitar.

Summary:
The acoustic sound is super, the electric sound is of reasonable standard, the action and general playability is good. I think this guitar represents excellent value for money and I would recommend it to anyone, particularly those with thicker than average fingers.
Chris.

I have bought a lot of things from Thomann in the past few months , three guitars ,three gigbags ,three feedback busters ,a clip on tuner and I have been blowed away buy the quality,playability,and the down right beauty of their products. I really don’t see how they do it BUT I guess they can’t get it right everytime .This guitar was a horrible mess. First the stings were deader than 4:00 ,the neck is bowed from Germany to Texas , and the action is 10 inches high (Well Maybe Not That Bad) and the neck is ruff ,the body has a few bad places in the wood. I could not believe that I got this from Thomann. I still like the guitar and it would cost me to send it back So I have a expert in acoustic guitars going to see what he can do.I hope he can straighten it out. I don’t blame Thomann ,I blame whoever inspected this guitar before they send it out. They must have been having a rough day. I’m looking at ALOT of other guitars ,amps and such that I will be purchasing in the next six months. The only thing I have left to say is Thomann love your product you just need to have a little meeting with your inspectors and let them know if the customer is not happy They don’t have a job. My Nickname is Happyme this time it is unhappyme.😢

My background:
I’m playing guitar for almost a year and you could rate me as advanced beginner 😊
My reference guitars are:
- a western: Dean, type PE-CBK. Still being sold for about 400 dollars
- a very, very, very cheap classical (nylon) guitar
- an electric: Harley Benton, typeSC-400 SBK

During practicing I noticed that I did prefer playing the classical guitar above the western guitar. The reason for me is that the classical guitar has a wider nut and has more space between the strings for finger picking. For some, for me unknown, reason most of the western guitars have a nut width of only 42mm while many would benefit of slightly more space in here. As being very happy with the quality of my electric Harley Benton the CLD-1048SCE could be an excellent replacement for my Dean and classical guitar

Details:
It’s really hard to believe the quality of this guitar. I did go through all the details and it is flawless on every single spot. Things that were mentioned in earlier reviews (e.g. uncomfortable tuners) are perfectly fine so I expect that the people from the Thomann company do really act upon the feedback received in these reviews. With respect to the sound I’m just blast away on how good this guitar really is: it is in a complete different league than my old Dean western guitar. The sound is very lively and bright on all frequencies and asks to be played forever.
For those interested: I did measure the width between the e-E strings. Compared with my 42mm (nut) electric and 42 mm Dean the CLD-1048 is about 5mm wider between the strings. So you gain about 1 mm between every string both at the nut and at the bridge end. For me this makes it much more comfortable to play but I would expect that more experienced players could still benefit as well.

Thanks Thomann for providing these great guitars.

I took a big leap of faith, ordering a guitar all the way from Germany to Australia, mainly because a steel string acoustic with 48mm nut width is impossible to get locally.

Well, I wasn't disappointed at all. The quality and the features of this guitar are quite comparable with guitars twice its price. The sound is beautiful, loud and bright; the intonation is perfect, and the neck feels like custom-made for me, it is so comfortable to play for someone with big hands. The workmanship is great, and this guitar is a real looker. Overall, I am very pleased.

The guitar needed a setup, but I firmly believe that any new one does, regardless of its price. I had to adjust the action and to slightly polish the frets, and I fitted a clear pickguard (actually, I was surprised it didn't have one); and I am going to fit a stap button to the heel of the neck. But it was nothing out of the ordinary, I had to set up all my guitars.

Once again, I am very pleased with this purchase. Well done and thanks, Thomann.

Theoretically this could be a fantastic guitar - well priced, sounds great, good Fishman pickup, looks good and the 48mm width makes soloing and fingerstyle playing considerably easier, especially for those coming from classical guitar playing.

However...

In my case the guitar was virtually unplayable out of the box due to very high action on the 12th fret - over 6mm. Maybe this was a problem with the QC of my specific guitar - but it's worth noting. And the biggest problem of all was that the truss rod was stuck, so the action couldn't be fixed. I used the provided allen wrench - but it wouldn't move, no matter what. Not even with a touch of lubrication. Eventually the truss rod nut got stripped (again, using the correct, supplied allen wrench) - so now the flat sides of the hex socket are rounded - so the wrench can't even get a grip any more. And apparently truss rod damage isn't covered by the warranty so I couldn't even send it back. The support team at Thomann tried to help with advice, ie that I take the guitar to a luthier (didn't help btw), try a special "gripper wrench" (that Thomann don't sell, so I needed to order from the US at considerabe expense - and it didn't work), so that ultimately I'm stuck with a new, unplayable guitar becaue of bad QC and a faulty truss rod that can't be replaced and isn't covered by warranty...

I received this guitar and unpacked it ,The q card measurments said 1st string first fret 0.5mm (actual 1.9mm) 1st string 14fret 2.mm (actual nearly 4mm) 6th string first fret 2.00mm (actual 3.8mm) 6th string 14 fret 2.5mm (nearly 5mm). It was the worst setup on a guitar i have ever seen. After a couple off hours adjusting and filing the bridge saddle and nut I got it set up perfect. The guitar itself is very nice and for the money is great it world be more inline off a £440 to £500 guitar. The wide 48mm nut is perfect for my big hands.. Overall very pleased with the guitar, NOT VERY PLEASED with Thomann service worst setup ever,, The guitar would get 5 Stars and Thomman 1 Star

The Guitar was GREAT in every aspect. About the only guitars you can find in the USA with at LEAST a 1 3/4" wide nut are Seagull, Alverez, Martin...and this guitar also has a "matte" finish to the back of the neck( I learned my lesson, and that is the ONLY neck I will even PLAY).
Add the electronics, stays in tune, the look and feel...the PRICE, this is "heaven on earth" to ME! And I have too many guitars to COUNT(top of the line, to "crappola").
The help I got from the great people here was amazing.
Got it in THREE days, and in good shape.
Could NOT be any happier with it :)

I have purchase two of these, first one b-stock and a week later another one for which I have paid a full price (new).
I was disappointed in both cases, which is a bummer since I really wanted to like these guitars. The sound is very good both acoustically and through an amp.

B-stock:
Came packed insufficiently - no foam wrapping, guitar in direct contact with cardboard and obvious finish wear on those exact contact points. Missing hardware (manual, spare tuner peg and allen wrench). Action too high (1mm higher as per attached QC specs).
All in all, the guitar still looked nice and I would use it, however, the neck had a worrying cracking sound at the neck/body joint when moved sideways (as if not glued on properly) and it affected the tuning stability - for this I will be returning it.

New:
Packed properly, all hardware included. The headstock had a very visible ding at the top, missing a piece of wood. The second crack was near the battery compartment (probably caused by a loose 9V battery in the box). What happened with the visual inspection??? The parcel that it came in was undamaged!
Otherwise, the guitar was set up correctly and sound was awesome.
I could not get past the QC issues though and have sold it to someone who does not care about this.

It is obvious that these two guitars were not checked properly before shipping which makes me sad as they are great instruments and very good looking otherwise.