I play mainly classical guitar style, though I do not limit myself totally to it and greatly enjoy an adventure into other styles of music, and of course, guitars. Because of HB's reasonably priced guitars ,these adventures have become more frequent and affordable and my latest is into the world of flamenco. I have tried playing flamenco on my hand made Richard Newman guitar but it has always lacked that bright, percussive tone as you can imagine so for £150 (approx) I decided to try Thoman's flamenco guitar. After a short wait the guitar arrived and I couldn't wait to get the box open and try it out. Getting a guitar from Thoman always makes me feel like a kid on Christmas morning, it's a joyous occasion.
First impression was not disappointing. The colour and quality of the wood is gorgeous and I was lucky in getting an amazingly symmetrical grain book matched feature on the back. Neck nice and smooth, not overly thin, and fretboard is flat with fairly low out of the box action. Tuners functional but not pretty, so will upgrade them. Nut plastic and in sure the bridge saddle is an uncompensated sliver of bone, so will probably change them too. Sound after a quick tune up was to my ears more like a classical guitar than a flamenco. The soundboard is thicker than I expected and the strings certainly were not doing the instrument any justice. After changing them to D'darrio flamenco, however, it took on the feel and sound of a flamenco. Certainly not a thoroughbred but adequate for my needs. A clear scratch plate or golpeador would have been a practical feature as it doesn't take long for your nails to rip up the surface of the soundboard without it.
All in all a nice guitar for the money. Well made, good wood, nice finish, easily playable with a surprisingly deep resonant bass and bright treble. Happy with the guitar and would recommend it as a student flamenco or as a go to now and then flamenco.
Now , I wonder what my next HB guitar is going to be?! I think I feel a bit of cool and slow and mellow electric bluesy jazzy stuff coming on; so maybe a semi hollow? Who knows? With Harley Benton the choice is remarkable and most satisfyingly varied. I'll go have a look now.
