Harley Benton GS-Travel-E Mahogany 5-stars Reviews

Sounds ridiculously good

The other reviews stating that this guitar sounds much larger than it is are 100% TRUE. This thing is a solid instrument, sounds awesome, is fun to play, and is worth 2-3x the actual price. The fret edges need filing, but that’s really the only fault I find - and again, for the price, quality, and big sound… you’re not going to beat this. I’m pretty certain most people wouldn’t be able to tell this from much more expensive models in a blind listen test. Oh - and a free gig bag!!!!!

Amazing for the price

I got this guitar as a beginner instrument, but its now the main instrument i end up playing. Love sound and feel to it. Simple to plug in and play too.

Excellent Guitar

These are the best value Travel size guitars around ,Incredible sound and quality ,I already have one for approx 2 years with no issues only great fun playing ,I bought this second one for my daughter to stop her taking mine !!! she loves it and its even better now with the on board tuner ,,

Absolute bargain

I bought this as my first guitar to test the waters and see if it was something that stuck. This guitar has been absolutely superb. The sound is amazing and I've used it almost every day. It's been beaten and bashed and has had zero issues.

I've used it for just over a year and the only gripe I had with it is that the sound, when plugged in, is pretty tinny. There's no way I'd record with it or play using it live so I decided to gut the electronics from it. If you're just learning I'd suggest going for the non-electronic version. If you need to record, use a mic on it.

It's a solid guitar, looks great, sounds awesome. Better yet, it's an absolute bargain at this price.

Great instrument

Sounds fantastic. Great Playability. Very well put together.

Lacks way to controlls on the guitar.

GS - Travel Mahogany

I already had a Taylor GS Mini, but when someone banged it off my coffee table I decided to buy this as a “beater”. The GS-Travel arrived and it was so nice, especially with electronics built in, ie tuner and pickup/eq and with a very serviceable gig bag, I decided I did not want anyone banging this up either! I did do some mods to it. I had a full set of Gold Taylor tuners laying around. The guitar need the action lowered, so I brought it to my luthier. He lowered the action, oiled the fretboard, and installed a new bridge and the gold tuners for $75. The guitar now rivals the Taylor in every way. I love it. Finally someone was selling a GS Mini gig bag on FB Marketplace for $30, which I jumped on so now the Taylor has nothing over the Harley Benton. Buy this guitar now!

PS: the Taylor comes with no pickup. When you add the pickup you have no EQ or volume controls or built-in tuner.

Awesome Guitar!

A great little guitar with a huge sound. Great craftsmanship!

GS-Travel-E Mahogany

AMAZING sound, price for quality is a dope.

small body, easy neck, great overall

Smashing little guitar for the money

This is a great little guitar for the price. I was very pleasantly surprised by this guitar. I play an 1972 Guild D40 and while of course the sound doesn't equal this guitar as the Guild has aged beautifully the Harley Benton has its own lovely sound which I like and I will be buying another one for my daughter

ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE !

This guitar has been so amazing and i've never played something so well, feels and plays just like the Taylor Gs-Mini. absolutely incredible!

Amazing value

Don't let the cheap price put you off. This is better quality than more expensive budget guitars. I wanted a cheaop Martin travel guitar and this is perfect. Worth every cent and even comes with a bag.

Great ...but here was problem,,

Wow, it's all been said before..fantastic guitar and equal to those at £500 to £600 elsewhere...The finish and sound on mine was spot on ..no complaints here, However there was problem despite a quality control checked sticker and label!

The battery is housed in a supple plastic housing inside the body between the heel and sound hole. It's accessible only by removing the strings, not great for a beginner but ok for me. This is not the problem I encountered.

The lead from the pick up is clipped inside the body to the upper face and should be long enough to reach the battery compartment. Mine wasn't by a good 15cm. A mirror on a stick and torch revealed the problem inside the body. The wire had been wound around several times placed in a fixed clip and left much too short. A real problem if you have large hands and after removing the strings and working by feel alone, after about 30 mins I established the clip glued to the body holding the wire had been bent over several times holding the wire much too short, which was impossible to see by any means but a bit of luck catching my fingernail under it gave it away. Had it not been for my partners small hands and perseverance I would have had to return the guitar, but we eventually managed to free the wire and re clip it....Absolute hassle that should not have been!!

As the guitar was so good in all other aspects I wanted to persevere with it just in case a replacement was not as good. As the owner of 7 Harley Bentons I rate them very Highly but someone in the factory had taken their eye off the ball !!!!

This would have been very disappointing for a novice. Just not good enough guys.

PS...By the way nowhere in the guitar packaging was any instructions on where the battery was housed or how to access and open the compartment. Pretty sure a novice would not have wanted to be taking the strings off and try and work out where the battery went.

For all intents and purposes it could look like the battery is just left clunking around in the body on the end of its wire,,,Small point but very relevant

Fabulous

This is an amazing guitar at the fraction of the cost of one of the big brands who manufactures essentially the same guitar for way more money. HB You never cease to amaze me!

Tremendous Guitar. Was very sceptical initially, but from the time of unpacking to till now got a very premium feel. Recommended purchase.

Excellent value for money

The set up of the guitar is very good, just a quick tuning up and it played well straight from the box. Tuning seems pretty stable after a few days of playing and the neck is nice and smooth feeling. Overall very good value and ideal if you want a smaller acoustic that is easy to carry around. I haven't had a chance to hear how it sounds amplified as yet, and fitting the battery is a bit fiddly and I'm not entirely sure I have done it right as it doesn't fully sit in. But mostly I just play it in my living room and it is perfect for that.

Great!

Great guitar, clean sound, all round instrument, on that price unbeatable.

Remarkable cheap instrument

After unpackaging the first impression is great: guitar is esthetic, clean and well packaged. On the first strumm the suound is a little bit toy-like, it is definitly not big and full, but it is pleasant. Guitar setup is nice, although string action is a little bit high. The one that I got doesn't resonate that well for high E and B string, it is quite suprasingly bassy though. The problems you need to fix immidietly to make it play better is frett polishing (they are not ruset but kind of tarnished, greeny-yellow and rough on the surface) and fretboard wood oiling (it is dry as hell). I also took of ~1mm of bridge saddle height to lower action and losened truss rod a bit cause my neck was almoast compleatly flat. Now it sounds really good acousticly and plugged and plays amazing! Included gigbag is worth like 1/4 of the price so it doesn't get better than this. Obviously it is not super high-end Taylor-like guitar but you can definitly make it close to that performance. Overall it is worth every cent

Unbelievable guitar for this budget

Very simply put from a guitar player for over 30 years who has owned way too many guitars, including way too expensive once, if you consider buying this guitar...just do it. You will thank me later. This is a GREAT guitar for the budget. Even at double the price it would still be fine. So just go ahead, let the GAS does its magic. This one is worth it.

more than I expected!

This is my first acoustic guitar.

Chosen for it's size and prise, so I can have something easy to transfer, cheap so I don't worry that much for damage and an easy transition from the electric to the acoustic world.

Despite all those great reviews I didn't expect it to be that good!

Almost no flaws in the appearance, except some tiny barely visible scratches and imperfections that i don't mind, and for that price I can't complain.

It's sound huge to me for it's size (although I have no other acoustic to compare it to, my opinion is based on acoustics I've used in the past).

Tuners hold tune ok for now.

The only downside is the action. It's quite high for my taste and I will have to lower the bridge.

Oh! And a scratch mark/a small tear out near the nut (probably created when installing it). But it's only visible if you try to clean the fretboard or change the strings).

All in all satisfied with my choice and hopefully it will inspire me to write some tunes.

Everyday guitar

Great guitar for outdoors fun and couch shenanigans.

Comes with a gigbag and a battery for the onboard pickup.

Battery holder is right under the end of the fretboard. You need to loosen strings considerably to get your hand inside, but once it's done you don't have to worry about it.

String action was setup fine, no buzzing, no dead frets.

Overall finish is good, I have couple of tiny marks on the body, nothing critical.

There is a little gap between nut and neck in the strings 123 area, but it doesn't affect playability, didn't even notice it the first week of playing.

Tuners are looking nice, but everyday when I pick up the guitar it's out of tune, haven't changed the strings yet, prob when I put 10-47s the problem will go away.

Soundwise: Of course it's more shallow when I played it next to my Fender CD-140, but on it's own it's pretty nice sounding guitar which I can play on the couch with no stress.