Harley Benton G212 Reviews

Okay cab

The spec is good, but it's a cheap cab. You'll not get better for the price but remember you'll get better quality if you spend more money!!

The vinyl covering material looks and feels cheap. The corners are a bit messy. The plywood is low quality, lots of voids and filler. If you look inside behind the acoustic foam you can see what I mean. The switch on mine broke after a year or so.

I needed a cheap cab to experiment with, it's good for that. I tried many speakers but found that it sounded quite two dimensional and boxy. I tried Celestion V30s, G12H Heritage, G12-65 plus quite a few others and never got the best out of the drivers in this cab. I have another cab made with void free birch ply that sounds a lot better.

As long as you are aware that it sounds a bit boxy (although do does a Marshall 1922 that costs a lot more) it's a good cab for the price.

Best bang-for-buck ever if you need a 2x12 cab

This is the cheaper version of the Harley Benton G212 Vintage 2x12” cabinet for guitar amplifiers. The price is slightly lower and the reason for this is the manufacturer's choice of two 12” generic, Chinese made speakers rather than the more expensive, albeit also made in China by Celestion, Vintage 30 speakers. For what is, I very much doubt there is a better priced guitar cabinet in the market. Anything else available is either a much worse product or simply a more expensive product.

The parcel in which I received the cab was very well packaged and made its journey from Germany to the north of England in perfect condition. The box felt rock solid and the cabinet contained inside the boxt felt really sturdy straight away as well.

The G212 cabinet looked truly professional. It did not look or felt much different from a previous Mesa cabinet I bought a few years ago. To be fair, when I placed the order, I worried about being disappointed when I had the product in front of me but I could not more wrong as the cab that I had received looked as good as I thought and more.

Specs wise, the mono/stereo switch is a really useful addition, the black tolex seems hardwearing enough and handles feel strong and inspire confidence. The front panel is attached to the chassis by some extremely strong Velcro. I could not resist pulling the front grille cloth off and have a peep inside: the 8 ohm speakers look well-built although they carry no logo whatsoever so their origin is unknown. Still, I believe they must be made in China to keep costs to a minimum without compromising quality. The wood is indeed thick, decent looking plywood and there is even some padding inside to improve the tone.

I tried the cab with a JTM45-ish amp head and the tone was powerful and focused. From what I could see from my quick inspection, the speakers themselves are not badly built and the tone is indeed very similar to the new Chinese Celestion G12T-75 speakers. They are brilliant for metal styles for sure. For ‘softer’ styles you might prefer the Vintage version with Celestion Vintage30s, though.

All in all, I am very satisfied with a great quality product that is certainly well-priced.

A Sturdy Guitar 2x12" Guitar Cab

Now, there are two ways to consider a HB G212 guitar cab: first is to accept it as it is. A sturdy, incredible inexpensive guitar cabinet sounding perfectly good for most genres (including hard rock, blues, and even heavy rock). What is impressive in here is the construction; the cabinet is made of real plywood and not crumbly MDF. I know, I checked! Also the closed back means there is more bass.

Second possibility is to use the wooden framework, but replace the stock Chinese speakers with whatever tickles your fancy; thus ending with a budget -- and yet custom -- cab of your choice. The speakers are by the way front loaded and easy to change.

Any way you will end with a cab that is perfect with 5W - 30W (or bigger) modern tube heads. I have used mine (with stock speakers) with a small Blackstar, 15W Tiny Terror and a 30W Marshall JTM to great success.

spot on!

solid cab, great sound!