Harley Benton HBMA-50E Mandoline BK Reviews
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.
Great product for a low price
By buying this product you will be getting great value for the price you have paid. The only thing wrong with this mandolin is that the string quality is terrible but after the stings are replaced it really is a top quality instrument
Not a deal
Usually Harley Benton provides excellent deals. This is not the case at all. The instrument arrived in poor conditions and it was full of screws to put back in, the bridge in the wrong place, with the strings misplaced too, the pickup magnet completely dirty and unscrewed. Hard to tune for this reason so it didnt sound like anything like for the first week. Then I changed the strings for the second time ( because it came with the strings all broken) with others and it started playing decently.The fingerboard wood is really bad and the frets are not stable. All the pegs were loose and badly set. A little more care in building would have been better. for the same price I could of bought a Fender. Usually this brand is a really good deal but this instrument is mediocre for the price.
Poor quality control lets the customer down and pickup feeds back easily.
The quality of the mandolin itself is very good but the pickup/electronics made this unusable. The pickup is very low output and poor production/quality control had resulted in the mandolin being unusable. Bad soldering had caused a very loud hum. There is something very wrong with the manufacturer's quality control. The issue was sorted, by me, after time and effort and very careful work but most people won't want or be able to do this. After sorting the pickup is prone to feedback easily so be aware. It's probably a better bet to buy the acoustic version and fit a good transducer. Very disappointing, the mandolin should have been fit for purpose and it was just unusable.
:)
excellent mandolin :)
very cheap but good
This is the second mandoline that I bought and is half the price but better sound quality that the other one that i own. Be careful when you tune because most probably one of the strings will brake.
quality
I bought this as a gift and its a great instrument
you get what you pay for.
Like most Harley Benton products, you get what you pay for. Not necessarily a bad thing when the product is on the cheaper end of the line. this is reassuring to know you are not getting ripped off.
To be fair i didn't expect too much buying this Mandolin, so it comes as a pleasant surprise that it sounds quite good, both plugged into the amp as well as acoustically.
The sound you get is way above what you pay for. So sound-wise, this is a ace purchase.
then down-side of it, is the mandolins play-ability. it surely doesn't feel as comfortable playing around the fret-board. This is more noticeable especially if this is not your first mandolin, and you have tried higher end mandolins.
To wrap it up, it is a matter of budget really. And if shopping on a budget KNOWING what to expect from a product of this price-range, then this baby is a lottery its price.
