Harley Benton RB-612BK Classic Series

I would rate it as four and half stars - if you do not mind a bit chunkier neck, than this 12stringer will do the trick at all fronts. The visual appearance is next to perfect, I like the sound of all three pickup positions, actually find it hard to decide which I like best (-: Fret edges could have been smoothed a tad better, but the action was fine right out of the box. The only caveat concerns tuning stability (obviously, it is a 12 string so you have to pluck and finger with more care). I got around it to a degree by replacing the thinner G string (which happened to be the thinnest strings of all the ones used) by a regular G, so the Gs are actually doubled now and the tuning feels more solid. Another small problem is that you cannot fine tune octaves per each string separately, as mentioned by other reviewers, but the sound of a 12 string is not all about perfect intonation, it is the magic chime that comes first... What an inspirational music instrument this guitar is!

This guitar is super-light, looks great, has a comfortable neck, smooth frets and fret-ends and has a cool vibe to it. Of course there are some downsides to it such as minor fret buzz and lower output on the low E strings. The fret buzz is fixable with a bridge adjustment if it bothers you (which it doesn't for me) and the pickup and pole pieces are adjustable as well which will bring the E strings to life a bit more. 12 strings always have tuning issues so be ready for re-tuning many times when you get new strings. The tone is amazing with the Filter-tron style pickups. I waited 3 months for this guitar to be re-stocked and it was totally worth it, especially with Thomann's pricing on the Harley Benton line of guitars.

To be honest with you, I spent the first year disliking this guitar very much! No matter how much I tinkered with the bridge .... I couldn't get the action to be reasonable at all. That's not great on a 12 string. But eventually, I realized that it wasn't a bridge adjustment at all, but a neck adjustment. The neck arrived with far too much relief and I didn't spot it. Once I made the adjustment and tightened the truss trod .... it played much much better. It's a keeper and I am now a very happy camper. Just something to check when it arrives. I missed it and shouldn't have.