Harley Benton Custom Line CLD-41SE WN Reviews

Superb

Rich harmonic open sound which is balanced and projects beautifully. Once I’d lowered the nut and treated the fingerboard the guitar plays like butter. Fit and finish is flawless. This isn’t just a great acoustic for the money it’s a great guitar in its own right and would be my first choice against anything up to 3 times its worth. It looks stunning too

Ok but not great.

The only thing is that frets are not even. There is a lot of buzzing going on when pressing. I checked neck relief and string action at 12th fret. Neck relief on 7th fret is .014 (which is ok) and string action on bass side is 2.1mm on treble 1.3mm (which is ok also). Guitar sounds fabulous! Will do some fretwork and it will be an excelent guitar!

Sounds Fantastic!

Sound and Quality is right up there with the expensive guitars! Highly recommend this model. (Harley Benton Custom Line CLD-41SE WN)

A very unique and sturdy guitar

I’ve been playing it for 4+ years and it holds up nicely, better than I expected. The sound is very good, I haven’t even changed the stock strings that it came with yet. I rarely need to tune it. Although I had some issues with the action of the strings, it could have been fixed by me very easily if I had the knowledge on how to do it back then. The features for me are irrelevant, I don’t plug this guitar into amps. The quality is amazing overall, but it is a pricy guitar I would say. I am not very sure that it is worth it solely based on the practical side, but it is a very pretty and unique guitar. I actually bought it only for the fretboard look with this shiny crystal-like features.

Amazingly stunning guitar

I am still learning the guitar and I could not have selected a better guitar to learn with. it's perfect and oh so very pretty. Really love this guitar.

Incredible for the price

I've owned $3000.00 acoustics and this sounds and plays every bit as good. I was sold from the various reviews and research but it's always a gamble until you actually get the product and test it for yourself. Not only was I not disappointed...I was elated. I replaced the stock str5ings with Elixir Nanoweb 12s and the tone is warm, full, and vibrant. The sustain is sublime and the tuning pegs are first rate. I haven't touched them after several weeks of daily playing and the tuning is still spot on. I did some minor customization to the saddle and nut to suit my taste and replaced the bridge pins with bone from John Pearse. It's mind-blowing how a $300.00 guitar can be this good. If you're considering a dreadnought acoustic...just buy this one without a second thought and treat yourself to some other goodies with the money you'll save. Absolutely incredible instrument on it's own but for the money, it's in the superhero realm.

Fantastic Guitar & a Remarkable Price

Beautiful dreadnaught guitar with solid spruce top & Fishman electronics, how do they do it for this price? The saddle needed to be lowered & then it was ready to go. Nice crisp sound, excellent fretwork, gorgeous look, comfortable neck.

fantastic value for the money

I've always wanted a dreadnaught and I've always wanted a Martin. This isn't a Martin but what a lovely guitar. It sounds fantastic!

Awful Quality Inspection

Everything was fine until I unboxed it and started seeing one defect after another (small dents, weird black dust on the frets?, just bad binding altogether and gaps when mounting everywhere. Returned the product, 3 weeks in, and even after contacting them, and I'm still to receive the money back to purchase another one.

I'm very disappointed to say the least

HB CLD-41SE WN

Was absolutely blown away with the quality, sound, fit and finish, and cost of the HB CLD-41SE WN.

with a little work very good guitar

until I managed to set it up I was a little desperate, I didn’t get what I was looking for out of it. Well, when I finally managed to set it up, a whole new horizon opened up for me. Easy to play without buzz. it took me quite some time to set this up. What I would criticize, however, is that the guitar is not quite as finished as it could be. Small particles that are not smooth are found on the varnish. As if someone was in a hurry to make a guitar without blowing it all the way through and then varnishing it. Too bad. But still when the guitar is tuned with elixir strings it sounds great and the feel on it is also great.

Unbelievable quality for the price

When you combine the quality this guitar brings and the price, its simply the best buy out there as far as I'm concerned.

Half a Guitar-ish

The best part of this guitar is probably the pickup and preamp. However, how mine passed quality inspection at the factory is genuinely beyond me. The neck is attached to the body at such a bad angle that it would be better suited as a hunting bow than a guitar and the best way to eliminate that isn't to lower the bridge and saddle but to actually rip off the neck and reattatch it properly; a difficult task when attached via a dovetail joint. Considering this, the sound is actually okay but the resulting hand cramps just aren't. It's a shame because it's actually built from half decent materials too, just not built well. If you bought the cheapest guitar on Amazon it's construction would be more similar to that than an actual guitar and you'd save about £250. To add insult to injury, I'm not as keen on the neck profile as I thought I would be but this hasn't affected my rating as it's highly subjective.

WOW!! This a beautiful guitar and a real bargain

What kind of acoustic guitars can you get for £300 UK pounds these days? Yes, you can get a good quality and well made guitar, but THIS guitar is much, much better than just good. It is a VERY good guitar regardless of price, but the price makes it EXCEPTIONAL. I have no idea how a guitar of this quality can be made and sold at this price and still make a profit, but I am not complaining.

The walnut back and sides have a really attractive grain and the fingerboard is nice and dark with very tight grain. I think this one is Pau Ferro and I was expecting it to be lighter coloured wood. The beautiful abalone (probably not real abalone) fingerboard inlays are quite dark. I was worried that they would be too sparkly and shiny, but they are sublime and expensive looking. The abalone body binding and rosette inlays are splendid and really well finished. I don't normally like shiny "bling", but this guitar is a welcome exception. With all the inlays, binding, and gold coloured tuners this guitar LOOKS expensive. Clearly it was inspired by a Martin D-41 and I think it looks just as nice but at a tiny fraction of the price.

The satin lacquer on the body and neck has been perfectly finished and the neck is lovely and smooth to play. The machine heads feel as though they are good quality and are very smooth without any play. The frets are very well finished and the nut slots are cut perfectly. The overall action may be a little high for people who are used to playing electric guitars, but there is enough saddle height to have it taken down a bit for those who would like the action lower. For me it was perfectly set up and played wonderfully straight out the box after being tuned.

The guitar has a very well balanced and rich sound with good projection, and the under-saddle pickup and Fishman preamp gives the expected nice "woody" sound of a piezo transducer of this kind. It is a joy to play amplified and unamplified and I think I will be spending a lot of time playing this guitar.

The ONLY reason that I have given a 4 instead of 5 for "quality" is that somebody failed to check the electrics before and after it was strung up and inspected. The small plastic connector carrying the battery power to the Fishman preamp was not plugged into the preamp and therefore the preamp did not work. I had to remove all the strings and reach well into the guitar to find the connector, untangle it from the other cables so that it would reach the preamp, and plug it in. I had to put on new strings after fixing the problem because it is very fiddly trying to restring with the same strings after they have been cut to length. A plug like this does not normally just come loose unless it wasn't properly pushed into place to begin with. There were NO OTHER quality issues though. The "fit and finish" is perfect and I am very pleased with my latest bargain.

Amazing guitar !

This is my 2nd HB guitar (1st is a red 335...wow !) It arrived safely and perfectly packed and within 5 minutes it was tuned I was playing. It is a sensational guitar,and I have many expensive acoustics. Truly remarkable fit and finish with an excellent setup right out of the box. The ONLY things I have done are sand down the bone saddle 1/8" on my floor belt sander (many may find this unnecessary), restring it with Elixir Nanowebs 12-53, and lemon oil the fretboard. Plays and sounds wonderful....bold lows and crisp mids/highs. I had never played a walnut back and sides guitar and I'd place it closest to rosewood for tonal comparison. I haven't tried the Fishman yet,as I do mainly studio work these days and mic my acoustics. This is an amazing guitar for 10x the $$ and I'm in awe. Do yourself a favor and buy one. You won't be disappointed !

Sublime

This guitar sounds and feels like a high-end guitar that worth 10 times the price. If you are a guitar player who often tries guitars in stores, get this one and you will thank yourself later. If you are a new guitar player who has not much experience comparing guitars, get this one and save your time choosing from beginner guitars.

Pros: great sounds, beautiful look, easy to play.

Cons: None.

Overall: Great guitar, a player, a keeper.

An amazing guitar at a very low price

This is a nice instrument at a nice price. Good looks and pro sound in a single low price package. I really love this guitar. It's going to be my go to guitar for recording. The Fishman preamp isn't that great but it's more than ok for using the guitar in live situations. Overall it's a great, affordable, good sounding instrument that beats all of its competitors in the 300 - 400€ price range.

Amazing guitar for the price!

This guitar sounds and feels great, it would easily compete with guitars 2-3 times its price!

The Fishman Presys sounds great on the acoustic channel on a Katana 100 in my opinion.

My only issues are that I think the abalone one the guitar is plastic and in the description it says abalone, and the bone saddle was a bit high, but that's an easy fix.

Other than that I really like this guitar and would easily recommend it!

Awesome guitar!

I normally only purchase guitars that I’ve actually played, but a close friend recommended this one. I told him I was looking for something between a Martin D28 and D35. He told me about this guitar, I bought it and couldn’t be happier. The action and tone are superb. I highly recommend this very affordable guitar. Also, I receive my orders faster than some things I order from companies here in the states!

Pretty sweet

Lots of good features, tone is good, needed truss rod adjustment for lowering the action but it is a decent Martin knockoff for the price.