Harley Benton HBMA-50E Mandoline BK

Not bad at all to noodle around with.

I purchased this just to tip my toes into the mandolin world and see how I liked it. Ultimately, it is a cheap mandolin, but it does the trick if you want to try mandolin out without sinking a bunch of money into it. I'm happy enough.

Good instrument

So far no complains ideally for practice.

Great first Mandolin

I am a guitar player and this is my first mandolin after ~20 (gosh!) years of playing. I never even tried one before, so my opinions are purely related to this specific instrument as I have no benchmark.

I am in love with the instrument, it sounds nice, bright and loud acoustically, I can't keep my hands off it. The string height can be adjusted, which is something i didn't expect on such a inexpensive instrument, and I have to say that I'm pretty impressed because you can get pretty low without buzzing! Neck relief can be adjusted too, but I didn't really need to adjust it on my instrument.

I haven't tried the pickup yet, but I guess it's a plain simple single coil, there might be some hum but come on, I won't play this mandolin with distortion (or will I?)

Frets' edges are a bit sharp, but nothing to really prevent you from playing and have fun. The scale is so short that my hand covers 10 frets, there's no real need of sliding back and forth that much. Also, the neck is so thin that your hands won't be as "tightly wrapped" around it as on guitar. Higher price instruments will probabily have a better fret job, but as far as I am concerned, this instrument is brilliant.

Impressive!

I've been a celtic bouzouki player for a decade now and I've always considered getting a cheap mandolin to use as a "half-instrument" while traveling and having fun outside.

Recently, I needed a mandolin for a very specific project and I quickly settled on this one. I'm so glad I did!

It has great construction, lovely curves, it's made of real solid wood, and sounds absolutely fantastic! I was very impressed with the color and finish, too - it only has the smallest of flaws that took me days to notice. For the price, that's just amazing to see. Good job, Harley Benton!

PROs: Great playability, great construction, awesome sound.

CONs: The usual things for the price class - imperfect factory setup, soft bridge prone to chipping, one tuner is harder to turn than the others. Nothing major to worry about!

One bigger complaint I have has to do with the pickup, which is very noisy and not that loud, making it practically unusable for my needs. But again, for that price, I can't fault HB. I'll change it with a better one in the future if I feel like it.

All in all, I highly recommend this beautiful mandolin. It's good for beginners or people like myself who just want to take an instrument outside without worrying about its size or fearing they'll accidentally bump it somewhere. All of the joy, none of the fuss.

If you're on the fence - don't be, just get it and enjoy!

Nice mandolin

Bought this for my home studio to put on tracks. Great price and sounds good.

Good for a beginner

Good sound considering the price (nice and bright and not very tinny), neck and strings fell nice in the hand and under ones fingers. Keeps its tune very reliably. However, the tension on the tuning heads is far from even and can be a little off putting. Furthermore, the action felt a bit high and took some getting used to (compared to a guitar - not sure if its a general mandolin thing or specific to this instrument). Despite these slight minuses its been a lovely instrument to introduce me to the mandolin and great for messing about with. Also, it’s portable and cheap (aka easy to travel with). All in all I’d definitely recommend this to a beginner.

How do they do it?

We wanted to add a mandolin to our band's repertoire, but decided to start with an inexpensive one to see if it worked. Despite the very low price, the quality and sound of this mandolin is very impressive.

Good mandolin

It arrived in good condition.

The only problem was that the pickup did not work.

The novice ear likes it

This is my first mandolin so coming from a place of inexperience this met my expectations; after I had a professional perform a set-up on it. Out of the box I could not keep it in tune for more than a few minutes, but after the magic of a closed curtain I am in business now.

Very Nice!

This is a handy little instrument for a first time Mandolin buyer: good price and nice sound.

The sound is good and for the most part the quality of the build and the features were well made - all in working order.

Many hours of enjoyment.

Only drawback were the strings - broke almost immediately. So, good buy and very nice instrument, but be prepared for poor stings.