Harley Benton HBMA-50 Mandoline VS 4-stars Reviews

A Bargain

A great starter mandolin - plays easily - decent finish -not a bad sound and all for an excellent price.

Good for those who want to get into this instrument

I've seen a few Pro-Mandolin players recommend this as a good starting point and so far I agree. Doesn't have a beautiful sound to it, but it's definitely a Mando.

One thing to mention is that even after a few months the intonation on the neck has gone a bit, the higher up on the frets the more out of tune it gets but I can live with that personally.

Decent

The frets seem to be a bit misplaced, as when i press down on the 7th fret, it's slightly out of tune compared to the next string, i only seem to have that problem on the higher frets though.

But the quality and sound is great for 750 SEK.

Great for the price!

Harley Benton does it again. Great product with great features at an unbelievable price. Fantastic for a starter which is what I needed it for. Only weak poo t the timers are a little hit and miss there’s k e or two don’t hold tune aswell as the others but still, a fantastic product for the money.

Great Mandolin for Beginners

I bought this because I'd always wanted to learn mandolin. I thought it would be very cheaply made, but I was impressed with teh build quality and sound for the price.

Great

Great for Mandoline initiation!

Great for the price

Harley Benton makes great stuff, period. I bought this as my first mandolin ever, and so far I am not disappointed. Obviously, it needs a bit of adjusting (intonation, sanding the bridge down a bit and contouring it to the body of the mandolin), but this is to be expected at the price point.

Pros: Sounds like a good mandolin to me, plays nice, looks great.

Cons: Not ready to play right out of the box (which I expected).

Nice beginner mandolin

Frets a bit sharp but at this prive I am happy overall

Really glad I bought this!

I have had a hankering for a mandolin for a few years, more recently after hearing some virtuoso playing on YouTube!

The mandolin arrived incredibly well boxed and protected.

The finish is quite perfect on mine, the intonation is spot on and no adjustment was needed for the neck.

There was a bit of choking or fret-buzz on the second pair of strings (A) at the 9th and 10th fret, however, this was minimal and played out after a few days of scale practice and learning the fret board.

One initial let down were the machine heads (tuners). Six of them were fine, two were quite loose, however, a small adjustment with a screwdriver has them working perfectly.

My HBMA-50 holds it?s tune very well and the OEM strings fitted are bright and clear.

This is an excellent first mandolin and has raised my interest in the instrument.

I have played some slightly more expensive mandolins and I would say they are not 2-300£/¤ better than this and would wait to save more money to buy a ?much better? mandolin (if that makes sense?) ? [By the way the mid-price mandolins I tried were very good, but I?m trying to demonstrate how good my model seems to be].

Just a few of things, buy a tuner, buy a gig bag, buy a chord book and a song book. These can all be had for under £/¤100 if you chose well.

HB Mandolin

I got this for my wife at Xmas but ended up playing it myself. I does the job for budget instrument, action is quite easy and a pleasant tone, more on the trebles than on the lower notes. I'd recommend putting a decent set of strings on it quite quickly as i did this and got better results than the one it shipped with. All said, very happy with this purchase and it is nice to look at as well as play.

Cheap but decent

Nice little thing to start and mess around.

Needs new strings and a setup (easily done yourself, mostly on the bridge the nut is slightly high but okay)

Overall for 50 euros that's a no brainer.

Pretty good, but...

Ok, so it sounds surprisingly good, but between the G and D strings between the first and second frets there's a piece of metal sticking out the neck. Kinda looks like the end of a nail, about 3mm long. Pretty sure it's not supposed to be there. At the same time, it's my first mandolin, so I'm not certain. Thats I give it 2 stars in quality.

Surprizingly good!

This mandolin is of surprisingly good build-quality, considering it's price. It's highly playable from the start. The sound is hardly breathtaking, a bit on the tinny side, quite frankly but still delivers volume. Tuners are ok, finish is probably first thing to go.

I had a blast learning to play this mandolin and that's what's important. A Good beginner's instrument.

Mandolin

Perfect for beginners - it does everything a mandolin is supposed to at much cheapness!