Harley Benton HBO-600NT Reviews

GREAT FOR THE MONEY

rivals guitars for way more money than this. i prefer this neck over a lot of acoustics that i use. does need some fretwork though.

O style guitar Wow

Easy to play , low action , not likw other acoustics

Harley BentonHBO-600NT Harley Benton HBO-600NT

Bought this for my daughter as a first real instrument. Excellent bit of kit easy to play sounds decent acoustically comes alive when plugged in.

Beautiful and loud guitar

The shape of the guitar is beautiful, but when playing sitting down it falls off the leg a little. Much more comfortable to play standing up. The sound of the guitar is muffled, but loud. Quite good for its price.

Amazing value

I've been playing guitar for over 50 years and have owned instruments at all price levels. I needed a cheap guitar for rehearsing in an enviorment where damage is a high risk and didnt want to risk an expensive guitar. Thought I would give this Harley Benton a go.

I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised at the quality for just £79. It came out of the box set with a low action. There were no marks or damage. The spruce top looks good, nice gloss finish. The fretboards is also fine. General build quality exceeds my expectation. The only flaw I found was the neck surface is a little uneven in places but it doesnt affect the playing. The pickup system is adequate but doesnt come with a tuner. I had trouble attaching a clip on tuner due to the rebated top shape of the headstock.

The guitar plays fine, ok, its not at toneful and refined as my D'Angelico but certainly fit for purpose. Just one thing worth knowing, wearing the guitar on a strap puts the guitar at a strange angle, tipping it in at the top towards the player. I got around this by fitting strap button under the heel and that leveled things up nicely. All in all I'm delighted with my purchase.

Damn….. it plays…. Nicely after a little workout (Edited after playing some more)

So… i have had my share of expensive and midrange steel string acoustics and had to conclude that acoustics would never become my thing. Always trouble with hard strings, stupid bridges that was unable to intonate, impossible truss rods, too high string action…. You know what i mean….

But for this price i was prepared to try it.

First of all it pretty nice to look at, it is built ok, without impressing, but the factory strings was a waste of natural ressources. .

New strings, a slight adjusment on the truss rod and this thing plays its heart out. The action is spot on, the intonation is spot on, the weight is spot on and the tuners are actually not as bad as i feared… The craftsmanship is absolutely accepted as well as the tuners.

But the round back shape makes it extremely difficult to sit with the guitar.

The fretboard was extremely dry, but it still played very well. Easy fixed though…

The acoustic tone is very nice and clear, but if something should be opgraded it wound be the electronics. The amplification of the built in preamp is very low but it sounds ok…. Nothing fantastic but enough for home play. In the studio the acoustic tone is absolutely acceptable, but dont use the preamp….

With thin strings and a very light adjustment this cheap guitar definately has taken my heart.

All i need to do now is to polish the frets which are very rough, and sand a little on the rough wood a few places. Then we are good to go live…. Later i might upgrade the tuners.

If i miss something it should be a a tuner in the preamp section.

Giant recommandation for this absurd low price….

The four stars are for the parameters listed and i have not taken the price into consideration !!

Needs some work

I expected to have to do some work when I ordered this guitar and I wasn't wrong. The fret ends are really sharp. The fretboard is dry as a bone. Needs a new set of strings. So off with the strings, use my fret end file to sort the ends out. Give the frets a good polish. Oil the fret board and install a new set of stings. You then have a great guitar for not a lot of cash. Do not buy and expect to be great without some work. Once you have done it, it's a good cheap guitar.

An update: I decided to replace the preamp with one featuring a tuner as well. The one I found was about 1CM wider so not much work to change and fits reasonably well but not designed for the fitting it is in. However when I came to fit an new set of strings the E machine head would not come up to tune it keeps slipping. I changed it for the D string but it is failing with that tension too so I will have to replace the machine heads. Not very good as this is only the third set of strings.

Impressed by how good this guitar is

I am expanding my fleet of guitars and decided to add a round back semi-acoustic to the rack. I chose this guitar for its natural spruce finish and low price and I knew the quality might not be very high.

I was so wrong! It is very well-built and the action is really low, so it's comfortable to play and doesn't require any adjustment - it's perfect for me. The tuners are okay - I will upgrade them though, probably to Wilkinson 19:1 ratio Grover-alikes (I always do this if needed).

The electrics work fine, although there isn't a tuner or a phase switch but at this price I am not surprised or disappointed - what is fitted works great (I have other tuners).

The best part is the spruce top - I swear is has flame running against the grain (a little like flame maple). It's subtle but you can see the light dancing across the whole top! Maybe I just got lucky with this guitar but it a beautiful piece of wood.

And the sound? That classic, soft acoustic sound with plenty of projection from the circular sound hole. Even better when amplified - it's a unique tone, I think.

To summarise: I would definitely recommend this guitar, it looks and feels and plays way better than its low price might suggest. My third Harley Benton and the keep producing the hits!

Superb

I don’t know how they do this for the price! This guitar is excellent, played beautifully straight out of the box. Deffo recommended.

Great guitar for the money

It's a very good guitar for the money. The sound is pretty rich and clear. Almost everyone who played the guitar was shocked by how cheap it is. The pickup system is ok. It is a battery-equipped, which was a positive surprise :)

For the bad things, I can tell that the strings spacing at the bridge was way off. However, it is a normal thing to adjust the nut on a new guitar. Count on that if you buy it as a first guitar.

Also, the bridge is suited for some small ball-end strings, and mine chipped when I tried to install regular strings. Couple drops of glue and drill fixed it :)

I play it for about four years now and I still enjoy it :)

I love this guitar

Great sound. Best acoustic I've ever owner. And the pickups are great.

My only gripe is the that the back is very slippery. But I reckon it could be fixed by sticking some kind of course material onto it.

great guitar

so this is not a cheap guitar that is poorly constructed like other guitars in this price range. this is a great guitar the tone is clear and spanky. only had to adjust bridge height and the neck was spot on, great guitar for the money.

Not bad but....

Excellent balance between quality and price ......BUT....

it has an ergonomic design problem.

It can not ''fit'' at your body and stay stand because of the curve of it's back.It slips away when you leave your left hand from the neck because of the right hand's weight and the curve of the synthetic back which touch your leg when you sit. One solution is the strap belt i guess....this is the main con of the instrument (i am not sure if it happens to all synthetic back type guitars, like ovation) .

The main pros is the amazing work of the neck and the perfect action for this cheap guitar.

Very Good Guitar

Excellent sounding guitar especially at the price

Very good pickup and Really warm Sound

Crazy Nice Guitar

I have a Ovation Al DiMeola Signature 1769-ADII4 and kinda hate taking it anywhere. Well I'll tell you this guitar plays so much like mine. It's now in the trunk of my car with a battery pa amp and I just love playing it on the beach or anytime there's a get together with friends. I also bought the black model in a b-stock. It's perfect. I'm putting a list together of a TE, a St and a 35 that I am soooo looking forward to getting. Continued success, Great Company and products.

more than adequate

For this price, this guitar is a bargain deal. Surprisingly good build quality, guitar is more to the sturdy than the flimsy side. Built-in electrics are fine, I would say this is on par with some beginner Epiphone. You wont brag around with this guitar, but it will surely do the job. Sounds just as good as any other roundback, sound lacks a bit of "depth" that a classic guitar have, then again you dont feel that if using cable.

I was searching for affordable acoustic guitar for camping, and as I'm used to play on electric guitar I wanted to have fast and smooth neck, with a cut to higher frets..

Already have Fender CD60, but never liked her neck and playability.

Sound on HB 600 is a little bit high and thin, when compared to full body dreadnought Fender CD60. But it is loud enough, little bit short on lows, which is expected on roundback slim body guitar like this. And of course like any other roundback guitar, it will tend to slide from you if there is no strap around sholders. Back surface is not slippery, but guitar will slide a little, it is just phisycs.

Sound through preamp is kind of "sinthetyc", like in all affordable electro-acoustic guitars. If one needs a good sound for amp, maybe it is better solution to buy decent acoustic pickup like SD Woody or simmilar.

One more thing that needs some attention, are the frets. They need a good and thorough polishing, because they are rough. Also the fretboard needs some oil, as it is very dry out of the box.

But taking in consideration low price of guitar, in my opinion it still worth the money...and even more..

Now the good points. After polishing, oiling, changing strings to 9-46, and some truss rod adjustment, this is completely diferent guitar. Neck is fast and playable, joy to playing. Action is even lower than on some of my electric guitars, octaves are 100% set.

Guitar also looks very nice, and for now guitar stays in tune. There is no point of comparing it to Ovation of course, but in my opinion you will get more than you paid for.

Imitation Ovation

Very nice guitar for the price. The guitar came packaged very nicely and everything was in good condition. There where no sharp fret edges and the fret board looked very nice. There is one spot on the fret board where the wood is rough, but it is not too serious. The tuners where good enough, as i have not had any problems with them so far. The sound is ok. When finger picking, the bass notes are not very loud. The only negitive was that the guitars bridge was not nice, and changing strings was hard. The bridge was multiple chips in in and was rough overall.

Pros:

Plays well

Good quality

Cons:

Some wooden parts where rough

The bridge

Overall, i would gladly pay about 200 euro for this guitar. The pros definitely outweigh the cons.

very good

it is a very good guitar for 92 euros

Fantastic value for money

I bought this for my daughter as a first guitar but have also used it myself. Great build quality and features for the price.