Harley Benton MA-500 VS Bluegrass Series Reviews

Unbeatable at the price. Works fine

This gets five stars overall because I don't know how they do it at the price and it works fine. I tuned it up right out of the box and it played nicely. I plugged it into my Trace Acoustic amp and it sounded nice, with good string balance. I particularly liked the sound with both pickups on. The pickup, selector switch felt positive and worked with no noise. The tuning machines felt smooth and positive. They hold the tuning. Cosmetically, you ether like the design or not, but it's well finished, with one small caveat which I mention later. With any new instrument, I like to set it up myself. The neck is straight and the purple heart wood fretboard looks good. I lowered the action to 2mm at the bass end and 1.5mm at the treble end (12th fret.) I then set the intonation so it will play in tune at the top end. No bother. The bridge assembly is sturdy and it works as it should. I have a couple of small gripes. The 20th fret was (I fixed it) a little proud and, with the lowered action was causing the 19th fret note to choke. However, you often find this on much more expensive instruments. I'll give it a proper fret dress on its first sting change. Also, it would have been good if the pickups (which are the size of guitar pickups, and probably are - blade type) were reverse wound, reverse polarity so as to humbuck when both selected. That said, there is no noise except when you get too close to the amp. In any case, I bought it for late night silent unplugged practice. The frets, apart from no. 20, are even and fairly well finished. Another reviewer commented that the fret ends were rough. Well they are a little, but not too bad, and that is easily fixed with some wet or dry paper. I'll do this too during my first string change. Finally, a brilliant piece of kit for the price. Needs a little set up as you might expect. I love it, but it's an absolute bargain.

Get ready to do some work.

Look dude, it's $100. Go in expecting to do some work on this beast. The nut is a mess. It's impossible to keep it in tune out of the box. However, this is a great instrument to learn on if you want to start learning to do your own setups.

The pickups are microphonic and very low output, but if and when you are able to wrestle it into tune (the tuning machines are hot, bleeding garbage and should be replaced immediately) it sounds perfectly fine.

It's heavy for such a little thing -- you will totally need a strap to deal with this instrument. The back of the neck is raw, unfinished wood, so that may feel a little strange. The fret ends are a nightmare.

All that said, for the price, it's still worth learning to set it up yourself or having a tech do it for you. You'll likely still come out ahead. Don't shy away from the instrument just on those merits. But also don't take it out of the box, strum it and think you're ready to go on stage. You're getting a $100 instrument, and the quality of it will depend on your sweat equity.

Nice for the Price

I am very happy with this product. All in good condition. Playing it with a portable headphone amp and impressed with the sound. Unless it turns up in bits you can’t grumble at this price. Arrived well packaged and within the projected 7 day delivery time.

Buy it

The best mandolin at this price, I put lighter strings on it & lowered the action, now a very playable & nice sounding electric mandolin.

Hugely fun

Strangely this mandolin is a lot heavier than a full size telecaster. I’ve switched out the bridge pickup on mine for a mini humbucker and that fattens the sound out. The only quality issue with mine is one of the frets is not fitted straight, only slightly out and it’s higher up the neck so with my fat fingers I don’t tend to go up there very often.

Great instrument -- but needs work

This is a fine instrument - but it needs work to realise it's full potential.

The fret ends are not just badly finished - they are totally unfinished!!! They feel sharp and unpleasant and will need a lot of work with a fret file. Out of the box, the nut was too high and the action on the verge of unplayable. It looks like they just bolted it together and rushed it out of the factory. However!!! With work - reducing the height of the nut, lowering the action and setting the intonation, it starts to come alive. For a buyer not prepared or skilled enough to make the changes -- this instrument would be a big disappointment and would need an expensive visit to a luthier to get it right. If you have average skills and enjoy tinkering with instruments then you can make the basic improvements yourself. There's a great instrument in there --- it just needs bringing out. Apart from the playability issues, the standard of finish is exceptionally high. Better quality control needed on the frets, the nut and bridge saddles.

Buy one, get it set-up

I feel really bad knocking a star off this product for quality but it did disappoint at first, even at this price.

The strings were so bad they some snapped when tuning it up for the first time. The saddles were all over the place and the frets were uneven and sharp.

But then as an independent guitar tech with my own workshop, I know that much more expensive instruments need setting up before they are at their best and the strings supplied usually need replacing right away.

If you go for one of these, you should expect to either spend some time setting it up yourself or take it to a shop to have a full set-up to get the most out of it. But then that's actually true of most most guitars ...

Love this eclectic solid mandolin.

Very comfortable and easy to play.👍

Excellent

This mandolin is amazing for the price, it sounds great and feels great, the build quality is of high standard.

Unique instrument, not bad build quality

My girlfriend says her finger hurt after playing it, but otherwise she is happy with the instrument. Build quality is not bad for such inexpensive instrument.

Requires fingers of steel to play

This looks and feels like a great instrument. However, the one thing it REALLY needs to be useful is not there - playability. The nut is cut so high that it's nearly impossible to push down strings on the first fret without pain. Even when you can play, the sound is not great. I didn't expect it to sound like an acoustic mandolin, but it's pretty bad. Really muddy, even with the tone cranked on the bridge pickup. Oh well, it looks good on the wall.

Great value for the money

Cheap enough to give it a try & buy on impulse.

Tragically flawed

This arrived thrown together without any testing or quality control. It took quite some time to set the intonation, only to eventually realise that the nut wasn't cut properly and it was impossible to tune well enough to be playable.

The Bridge won't allow the G strings to be set low enough and intonated correctly at the same time. The tuners have considerable play in them. Knock the bridge and it goes instantly out of tune.

Having said that, it sounds fabulous through a long reverb and benefits from a bit of compression and distortion. The pickups give good tone colour

I've totally fallen in love with the Mandocaster as an instrument. So this one is going back and I've ordered something better instead.

Bargain

Great little Mandolin, no issues in the three years I have owned it. Bit of a bargain rerally

Buy this now!

This is unbelievable value. An electric mandolin for under £100 of this quality is almost too good to be true. My only quibble (and it’s not that big a deal as I usually put a fresh set of strings on any instrument I buy) is why supply it with bronze wound strings, it’s full electric pickups not piezo.

Exactly what I wanted and a bit more!

I am an infrequent but experienced player of mandolins and what I was looking for was a reasonably priced instrument which I could use on the occasions (writing, playing, performing) when I needed to. What I got for the price of a good night out far exceeded my expectations.

Firstly, it looks stunning and the build quality is, without qualification, excellent.

The instrument was playable out of the box, a pleasure to play and, importantly to me, after a good half hour noodling my fingers were still good.

It looks stunning and the build quality is excellent.

Plugged in you have a good basic sound. I don't understand why reviewers say it doesn't sound like a mandolin. It's electric you can make it sound how you want.

Obviously it hasn't an acoustic sound but it is pleasant and quiet for practicing.

I did lower the action at the saddles after a while because it was easy to do (and lower is always better) and will set it up some more when I have the time. Having experience of acoustic mandolins I was particularly surprised at the scope and ease of adjustment. String length, saddle height, neck and pick ups are all easily adjusted and have loads of range.

A big thumbs up for this type of mandolin and for this particular model.

Brilliant little instrument

Fit and finish is perfect - quality way ahead of the price point. Sound is good with a clear difference between pickups. The bridge is designed for ball-end strings but I use the more widely available loop-end strings, using a small metal bar to keep them in place.

Works great with the StrumBuddy stick-on amp !

For me this mandoline really shines as a very nice feeling practice tool; I can play the mandoline and not make a lot of noise. Keeps the neighbours (and the girlfriend) happy. It sounds alright unplugged, feels nice in my lap and plays great. Plugged in it feels rather useless to me, but I might try different strings (solid steel or nickel plated steel) in the future to see whether that makes a difference.

a tool that assists fulfill musical dreams, and for less than a nights board in the Best Western Hotel. Unbelievable

If Angels did n't play harps then they would be playing this heavenly aparatus.

Fun + Solid - design flaws = 0

(+) It's a solid build - like a Tele-guitar but...

(-) for that, heavy, bulky-feeling V-neck, feels nothing like a mando. (matter of taste)

(-) The frets are uneven and have sharp edges

(+) The hardware is solid, too, but...

(-) the 4-barrel/nut Tele-like bridge does not work well on a mandolin. The string guides of each barrel, as well as the intonation screws are off-center, which might not be a problem on a Tele, but the string tension on a mandolin is much greater, not just downward tension. The result is the barrels leaning completely on one side, leaving the other side hanging in the air. this happens mostly when trying to lower the action.

(-) Each pair of strings is fed through the same hole on the back of the bridge which seems sort of makeshift, not really well thought out. And this probably also adds to the leaning barrel problem.

(+) The electronics work and sound fine. With both pickups on, you get a nice funky guitar sound (if that's what you're going for). Actually, you get a pretty nice range of sound combinations for such a small package. That's definitely a big plus which makes it a lot of fun.

(+) It's great for practicing in the middle of the night, unplugged or of course with headphones plugged into your favorite amp or amp-sim.

Finally it's a really fun instrument with lots of sounds to experiment with. But don't expect a ready-to-play, low-action, mando-shredder. So if your willing to put in some work (or you have no feeling in your fingertips), it's definitely a good bang for the buck. But I just wanted a practice mando that doesn't upset my neighbors. I think I'd rather just stuff a normal mandolin with foam.