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.

I bought a lot of Harley Benton D-120CE BK, for myself and also reselling it and everytime I received my orders I always look at the neck, there are always a very minor issue in the neck and the truss rod, all I received was either bowed or there is a bulge in the part where the neck meets the body of the guitar, I don't know if this happend during shipping (temperature, humidity etc.) or the guitar was not properly setup or did not undergone basic setup prior to shipping. Somehow I manage to adjust the truss rod and somehow make it barely noticeable that I can still sell the item without any complaints from my customers.

However, it would be great if Harley Benton (Inspection) Team would take a little more time to inspect the units carefully and make sure the guitars are properly setup at least to a playing condition. The guitar sounds good and the built-in preamp is loud too..the guitar is close to perfect except for that very minor issue in the neck/truss rod.

This is my first acoustic, but not my first Harley Benton. I am a fan of the brand and expect low price, but with a few bits of personal preference in the setup.

Out of the box and tuned easily so off to a good start. I put a little more neck relief on it, felt there was a bit of choking. Think this is my preference/playing ability and not a problem at all with the guitar.

Tops of frets 14- 20 were very rough, but you cant access these as they are attached to body of guitar and the bottoms of these frets in the cut away are OK for smoothness.

Plugged this into my electric amp on clean and works well, but it gives a good sound on its own.

Some notes not in the description,
Comes with a new 9V D battery, take this out of plastic wrapper to make it work!
Comes with 2 pick guards, that are stick on, one tortoise shell the other black.
No cable

Well, to start off, I just want to say, to everybody, that this guitar for anyone, who is starting to play, learning just first things would be amazing.

I did first buy this guitar in the late 2012, and now after 6 years I can surely say what do I think about it.

1. There were some issues with the guitar, tho after just some polishing work at first it became a usual instrument that I picked up when got home after studies.
2. Tuning stability is fairly good, nothing to ride home about, but it works and you can have some fun with it for sure.
3.Sound is magnificent - I have played extremely expensive acoustics that just sound dull and doesn't have soul, for this instrument, playing it over these years - I have found the tone and versatility of it just brilliant.
4. I did add a pickguard to this guitar, as it didn't come with one when I bought it, but basicly - it has stood the test of time and I would recommend this to anyone who is learning to play guitar or is doing gigs and doesn't want to bring his 700 euro guitar with him :)

In the end I have to add, that in-built pickup system is OK at best, but I am not putting is down as this is after all under 100 euro guitar.

Got 2 of those. One for me, one for a friend as a gift.
Both arrived without a scratch on the finish.
They look better than some of my other higher priced guitars.
One of the guitars had slightly creame finish instead of white, but who cares with that price :D. I've gifted the better finished one to my friend, and he liked it.

Both of them came out of the box playable, but the fret ends were sharp. And by sharp I mean...well sandpaper scratches your fingers less. 15-20 minutes with a file and a bit of polishing sorthed this problem out on both of the guitars.
The tuners are not the best, but they do their job.
Changed the strings on both of them, as I was unlucky to break a string while tuning the firsth one for some reason, and the second one had rust spots on the strings.

Soundwise... they both sound great.
With Daddario EJ10 strings, In open D tuning, the sound is deep and swampy. In standard tuning, the highs are clear and punchy.

Overall, you will need to spend some time on finishing the frets probably, but otherwise, it's just a great bargain for the price.

I'm a novice guitarist and I wanted to rekindle my love for the instrument. After some research I decided to take a chance on Harley Benton as this was my first time buying this brand. And I must say I am very pleasantly surprised on how good the guitar turned out.

It was playable from the box but the action was higher than I wanted so I reduced the saddle height a bit and voila, the guitar got so much easier to play. There is a slight fret buzz in one of the frets but it doesn't bother me and I plan to sand it out soon.

Delivery was on time and well packaged. The guitar came to me spotless and brand new. Thanks to Thomann, I got a good instrument and have ordered other guitars since then.