Harley Benton MA-500 VS Bluegrass Series Reviews

Fantastic instrument

When I bought this I thought it would be a base for upgrading all the hardware to make a decent instrument. I couldn't have been more wrong. The finish is flawless. The bolt on neck joint is perfect as is its shape for my hands anyway. The tuners are silky smooth and have no play or stickiness which is often found on low cost instruments. The strings sound fine. Pickups work as they should and there is no hum that I've found through an amplifier. Mine arrived with the improved bridge allowing intonation to be set independently for each courts of strings as well as individual height adjustment. No complaints there. It has strap buttons fitted and even came with a guitar lead albeit a thin short one. It's more than other makers provide! Does it sound like a mandolin? Yes in the same way that an electric guitar sounds like an acoustic one. It's different but great fun and it depends what you want it for. I love it. The nut was cut about right. I may shave a tad of it but not yet. The bridge action needed lowering but that's a couple of minutes of a job using the supplied Allen key. If you fancy one don't hesitate. I really don't know how they can be made for this price. Only minor gripe is that it has a flat fingerboard. Radiused would be better but for this price no complaints.

Amazing mandolin

This is a nice instrument for the price. Right out of the box it is playable, but after some TLC it is amazing. I switched to lighter strings, tweaked the saddles, adjusted the intonation, nut an neck.. and voila: The perfect practice companion.

Acoustic, it sounds very nice and quiet. That goes without saying. It is , after all, a solid body instrument.

Electric, it sounds very nice, with the same choices of mic combinations as a telecaster. Perfect for the mandolin fills you need on your recordings. It will never replace the sound of a 1920' Gibson.. Anyway.. Just buy it. You will love it. I know I do .. :-)

Not bad for the money

This was purchased as an alternative to an acoustic mandolin for some smaller shows where it wasn't practical to get a condenser mic in front of the mandolin.

In terms of quality it is hard to fault, decent wood and hardware and certainly feels like a study instrument that would be capable of handling the rigours of the road.

Playability was good although it certainly has more of an electric guitar feel rather than a traditional mandolin but I think it's fair to say that this is to be expected!

One thing to note is that, like an electric guitar, this thing really needs to be fed into an amplifier of some sort rather than via a DI straight into the desk - the guitar style pickups rely on the amp to add 'warmth' etc to the signal - without going through an amp you are left with a rather thin sound but again this isn't a problem with the product, just something to be aware of.

Eventually I ended up buying a dedicated pickup for my acoustic mandolin as it yielded a more traditional sound for the material I was playing but if I was after a less traditional tone I wouldn't be worried about playing this into a decent guitar amp.

Fun little thing - but needed work

I'm pretty comfortable working on guitars, in fact I enjoy it, so I bought this as a little project.

I'd only messed around with Mandolins and decided that it was about time to get one in the house and as I was going through a Tele phase this seemed like a perfect fit!

It does not sound like a mandolin, but it gets that kind of flavour if you're looking to add textures/layers to a recording.

The amplified sound is a little dull, although this may be down to the original strings, and there is not a huge difference between pick up locations. However, as above, I have found uses for it when needing to add extra layers or textures to recordings.

It was playable out of the box but needed a fair amount of work to make it playable to my liking - so work was done to the neck, frets, nut and 'saddles'. The actual finish of the instrument is great and as a little practice instrument it has been brilliant.

If you are looking for a 'serious' mandolin, look elsewhere. If you're looking for a robust project instrument and want something different this is for you!

Neat little thing.

This isn't your typical "Losing my religion" mandolin. There isn't much in the way of acoustic sound to it, so having an amp is pretty much mandatory. Having said that, it's a really fun unit, and somthing you can use for the occasional mandolin playing in a live setting, where the lack of acoustic behaviour might actually be a benefit. Getting this to feedback will probably not be very easy.

You should be comfortable with doing a set-up of the mandolin. When I got it the strings were way too high for my taste, and the intonation wasn't really up to snuff, but that's nothing you can't fix with a couple of twists with the hex keys.

Superb Value

This is a great little instrument, great value for the money, the finish and quality is amazing. When plugged in sounds really nice with good controls. I did re-string it and intonate it to suit my playing, but that's quite easy to do.

Lots of fun and eye catching sitting next to a six string Telecaster with similar finish.

No problems recommending this instrument, you can't lose at that price and quality.

Bridge not up to standard

Wery nice instrument, beautifully made and with

a good sound, BUT the one piece bridge dont let you

adjust the intonation on the second strings - I made a new

bridge from rosewood that cured the problem

in the light of the price, however, you are getting

a nice mandolin

Amazing value for this electric mando !

A do not know how they can produce an instrument like this for the price, I play in a skiffle band, and with a small portable amp this introduces another interesting sound, I must admit the strings supplied with it are hopeless and I changed mine immediately for d'addarios, but otherwise it is a great little electric mandolin and quite an eye catcher as they are unusual, I do recommend this instrument