Harley Benton HBO-850 Classic Blue Reviews

Great looking and sounding guitar.

Really nice to play.

Very nice product. Looks more expensive .Sound is really very good and there are no flwas in the paint job.Excellent purchase for a buiginer guitarist like me.Hilly recomended.

Great for the price

Guitar is very good looking and can be connected to amplifier, which is always nice to have. For the price it is super, but expect that strings might buzz in many places which is quite annoying. I am still trying to check if this can be fixed somehow. In few words, super for the price but expect some issues.

Great roundback guitar, comes rough but with a little effort can be made much better...

First of all, let me say that this guitar is absolutely good for the price it costs since it has a lot of good characteristics:

1. it is really beautiful and catchy

2. it is very confortable and easy to play

3. it has a good sound and good amplification system

4. it is light and really ergonomic to embrace.

Anyway, it came with some drawback:

1. old strings, to be changed

2. the frets had no filed edges

3. a lot of dust in the body

4. the action was too low, with some strings whipping on the neck.

In other words, it needs a good work of set-up: i put off the strings, polished its neck with oil and wood polishers, take an iron file and with a bit of patience scraped the frets... finally I rise up the action and... there it is! A good instrument to be played even in live situations, easy and beautiful to play!

Ovation style classic guitar

Very nice guitar, beautiful, nice comfortable neck, easy to play! Not loud but if you need to play some gig's u can connect it to PA and with little bit of EQ it sounds like 500€ guitar!

Only problem with this one is tuning stability, i try with new strings but same problem! I will try some hacks next time when I change string to improve tuning stability. After all this is 100€ instrument and for that price this is great guitar!

The Ovation imitation is only OK.

Realizing that this is a budget guitar, it comes with a few issues. The quality of workmanship needs some attention there were scratches on the body around the neck on both sides of the fingerboard. There was a small gouge in the binding, the leaf design around the sound holes was lifting and had to be reapplied into place. After a good set up and adding some silk & steel strings it plays very well. Both the bridge and the nut are plastic and i replaced both with tusk. Acoustically it plays very well with a good tone. The electronics are cheap and don’t sound to great. Better to play with a mic and not use the built in pickup. Over all a good value for the money with some corrective actions by the buyer. If your handy with guitar work this is a good buy. The wood stick on designs are annoying. I would remove them but then you would have to deal with the glue residue. So they are staying on. But like i said it’s OK and looks good over all. With a good set up it now plays well too.

I bought it for my wife and she loved t. It's beautiful, sounds good and its light finger handle made easy to play. I was positively surprised. Her only complaint was that as an "Ovation" it has the rounded back which may be a little slippery when you're sitting and you'd better have a strap attached.

Great guitar

It feels great when playing.

Sound is very good unplugged.

When plugged sounds great.

Price is awsome

Highly recomended

Excellent Product

This is an excellent guitar for its price. I was surprised how light it was. This will definitely be my ‘go to’ guitar from now on. I am thinking of buying another one as a travel guitar.

Very good for the price!

I have ownded several low end acoustic guitars (I'll never buy a low end electric guitar any more!) and this is the holy grale of cheap guitars!

Playing is very light and sound ok when playing acoustically. Keeps tune fine. Looks very nice from distanse (over meter), but closely you can see the quality of materials and work.

Drawbacks are: Round back is not perfect for keeping on lap, but it is ok. Smells glue (as all my Harley bentons does, even after long time). The feathers/leafs/or what ever the ornaments are is almost dropping off.

So mine was with nylon strings, but will be ordering one with steel strings also because I'll wan't to know was this just lucky piece :-)

Built in tuner would be great addon!

HBO-850

This is my 5th Harley Benton purchase and I've left it a little while to "review", to try and form a reasoned opinion.

Pros - The instrument looks fine from a short distance. It plays nicely - after a little work. I find it nice to go back to a classical guitar string spacing for clean chords, maybe I have fat fingers ? To have a nylon string guitar but with a truss rod adjustment is nice, to have the ability to fine tune the action is great and helps the playability. The price is incredibly reasonable and to incorporate a piezo pickup and tone controls within that package, very good.

Cons - I find with each of my H.B. guitars there always seems to be some imperfections in the finish, it is a bit of a lottery. This guitar is no exception - A few minor marks and scuffs. I have learned to accept that these products may need a little extra finishing and setting up. Consequently and ironically I have learnt quite a lot about guitar finishing. This guitar had a number of high frets, but I have found that before you get involved in "dressing" them, use a mallet and a wooden die of some sort, support the neck immediately under the problem and give it a tap, problem goes away. I'm surprised how many H.B. frets are not seated properly. Sound wise - Acoustic. I feel it lacks a brightness, the top three nylon strings lack a clarity. I was hoping for something a little crisper, I'm sure I've had even with cheap classical guitars. Obviously I changed to fresh strings, a brand which I assumed to be of reasonable quality, straight away - though I've a feeling that the guitar was shipped with good fresh strings. Sound wise - Pickup. I like the amplified sound a lot but I'm sure the response to the low E is down, I'd say 50% of the other 5. Though it's hard to tell with the guitar in your lap. I need to distance the amp and get another listener. But to me it's apparent via Headphones.

Sum up. I purchased this guitar for a variety of reasons. In my youth I always hankered for the "O" type guitar this is based on. I like and wanted to recreate the slightly artificial / synthesised sound of a nylon acoustic put through effects; reverb, delay, chorus etc. By plugging this guitar into a Katana I get the kind of thing I was after with lots of sound options at great price. I can EQ some treble clarity back into the sound. There are small finishing issues, most of which are easily sortable and having done so, I am going to live with the questionable piezo. I would never have purchased the four figure equivalent. But I do have something which looks great in the collection and is very enjoyable to play and experiment with. Therefore, for the price, reasonably pleased with my purchase.

Great

You simply can't beat this for the price. Very well made for a budget instrument. Better than some "quality" guitars.