Harley Benton ST-Acoustic Black Reviews

cool

this guitar is quite small. sounds good. belt attachment location on the fretboard is inappropriate. Harley Benton engineers could do better (made belt attachment on the top of deck like stratocaster). in general this guitar is good.

ST-Acoustic Black

Acustic sound crap...Picups OK

Useful

Light, not too bulky, I normally use a strat. Tuners adequate. Putting the strap button on the back of the neck is a bad idea, I have moved mine. Action out of the box is ok, improved with a little work on neck, nut and saddle. Sound is reasonable, after some careful setting on the PA. Overall, for 3 or 4 acoustic songs per gig, an excellent tool.

Sensational acoustic stratocaster

Very good guitar. Comfortable and fast neck profile.

Without power it is quieter, for playing with a second guitar it is good to have a combo, but for solo playing the volume is sufficient. The sound is warm with sparkling highs. A great alternative for electric guitar players who sometimes want to play acoustically and do not want to bother with the limitations of a classical guitar. The guitar tunes perfectly in the whole range, except for the E string behind the sixteenth fret, there it moves a few cents. Very good workmanship. I've had it for a year and I don't regret it.

Comfortable Guitar

A good guitar for those who play electric guitars and pick up an acoustic guitar once a month. This is how I use it.

Needs a setup but otherwise superb

I'm playing mostly electric so I wanted an acoustic that plays like an electric. I also didn't want to spend a lot so I was at first looking for a stratacoustic. I have heard a lot of good stuff about Harley Benton for years so when it showed up in my searches at 1/3 the price of a Fender, I decided why not.

First impressions was not great. 3.25mm action on high E, 12 fret is a lot and this guitar did not play like an electric. Truss rod was loose and neck had too much backbow. After adjusting neck and adding a neck shim, the guitar plays beatifully. I got the action down to about 1mm which feels comfortable. The neck is straight and the fretwork is better than I've seen on some brand new Gibsons.

The tuners are low quality but the guitar stays in tune. The pickup system sounds a lot better than the price should allow for and I'm blown away by the overall quality. It should not be possible at this price point.

Good value guitar but may need a little set up adjustment.

Just had to try one of these for this amount of money, Delivery was quick via DHL, No damage or imperfections on inspection, tuned it up and played it unamplified and was pleasantly surprised at the loudness and tonal qualities. Popped the battery in and plugged into amp and again very pleasantly surprised at the sound and tone variations available. The action was far too high for me being about 5mm where neck meets body, and there was also no relief to the neck, so I modified the set up (generally in accordance with Fender recommended measurements)

firstly setting the neck relief, but when I checked the 'Action' I would have needed to lower the bridge by approx. 3mm, and as I did not want to do this (piezo pickup underneath), I decided to modify the neck angle - thank goodness for Leo Fender! It did not need much in the way of shimming and a small folded piece of emery paper at the bottom end of the neck pocket did the job perfectly so overall I am quite happy with the guitar especially at that price. It would be interesting to hear if others experience similar set up issues. Almost forgot to mention on the second day of playing via amp, the sound kept varying in volume and cutting in and out, I bought a new battery and when fitting it spotted what the problem was - battery too loose in plastic holder so fitted a folded piece of card to press the battery down onto the contacts and this seems to have solved the problem.

real good)

full-fledged solo acoustics, you can make the strings very low and play any shred solos, the sound is slightly flat but this is a design feature, the quality is very high)

I recieved this guitar quickly, and was plesantly surprised, it was in great shape nice and clean no flaws that i could see. It is really light, nice and thin which make it easier to get around and play. I hooked it up to my amp and it sounds pretty good. Nice little practice guitar . Would purchase again.

A remarkable concept.

Nice finsh. Nice to play acoustic. I never owned a plastic backed guitar before, so this will take some "getting used to" as plastic seems "slippy" and moves around a lot while actually playing.

Neck set up, action is good outa the box.

My only fault is the electricks, the thin E string gets "all" the attention, while the thick E gets almost zero, making the electricks difficult unless you own a big eq machine. I cannot see any way of curing this problem at the moment. So I used a quality sound hole magnetic p'up. Now I use this for gigs, it's great. I love it a lot.

The sound is good, the neck is a dream for all my licks & chord shapes.

So nice too as an acoustic.

A beauty to see. I love this thing.

A great acoustic guitar that plays like an electric

I own a Fender "Stratacoustic" guitar (which this Harley Benton is based off) and the Harley Benton is nearly as good, but for less than half the cost. The Fender has slightly better piezo pickups and a built-in tuner, but overall the Fender isn't really "better" than the Harley Benton. The HB even has better tuners than the Fender.

If I had a time machine I'd have never bought the Fender and simply got this guitar and a clip-on tuner.

Great practice guitar

I never had an acoustic before and wanted something to practice with that I could carry all over the house easily and not be too loud and bother my kid doing remote learning school, and this is perfect. It plays sort of like an electric without needing an amp and with 1/3 the size and bulk of a traditional acoustic. It's obviously not going to be as loud as a dreadnaught, but that's perfect. Yea, the body is plastic, but so what? Set-up and playable right out of the box. Just tuned it up. I've only played it through an amp once, and it worked, nothing noteworthy. The only down side is the tuners are kind of rough so those will get replaced.

Great fusion guitar

A lovely way to get acoustic sound with an electric guitar feel and works fantastically as an acoustic and amplified, so with or without an amp. Good finish for the price. Not as much volume as a normal acoustic guitar but through the amp. the built in electronics work well.

love it

I bought this thinking it would do nicely as a "general purpose dogsbody" guitar which I wouldn't need to worry about getting a knock or two - unlike my more expensive guitars. It's better than I expected.

The good stuff:

Very prettily finished, there are a couple of minor imperfections at the binding edges, but only noticeable if you look very hard and critically at it. Lovely neck and fingerboard, nice frets, no rough edges there. Action was fine for me, straight out the box. Unplugged, it is louder than I expected, compares well with my Ibanez Talman. Obviously not so much projection as a dreadnought - you couldn't expect it - but very useable all the same. Amped up, good tone (typical piezo undersaddle sound) and the 4 band EQ works well.

The bad stuff:

Nothing REALLY bad, but the tuning machines feel clunky, heavy and not nice to use. It seems to be stable enough once it is tuned but I'd consider fitting a better set at some point, Which, for a set of Klusons, would add about €40 on top. Still a lot cheaper than buying the Fender product, which is also not without its critics.

Overall, highly recommended as a good all-round top value guitar.

Update 3/10/2020: The clunky tuners were really getting to me, so I obtained a set of gold-plate finish ones (from Amazon - about €12, free postage) as well as some goldie roller string trees. Now I cannot fault the instrument, I took a bit of a gamble buying cheap tuners, yet even at that price they were much better than the factory ones. HB please note!

Update 18/10/2021: I'd like to add that I've now had this guitar just over a year and it has become my most used instrument of the seven guitars I currently have available. I don't think anyone could regret buying one and at this price they are amazing value as well.

Nice instrument.

It is a nice and enjoyable quitar to play.

Pros:

Build quality is good, there are no flaws. Acoustic sound is quite good for the size of the body. Eq works as expected. Nice playability.

Cons:

There is actually one negative thing regarding the tuning pegs. Their rotation is not smooth, but has some jumps and as consequence it may be a bit hard to get the right pitch in fine adjustments. But once you get there they keep the tuning well.

Great sound, will not stay in tune.

Good guitar for the price point. Great sound, good feel, and light weight in a Strat profile. However, the tuning machines are terrible - do not turn smoothly, tend to slip and will not hold a tune for long. Needed to tune out of the box and immediately snapped the high E. After replacing it, I noticed that all the strings need significant tuning after about 10 minutes of light practice. I am replacing the tuning machines with higher quality ones. It is still a good value guitar even after spending extra money on replacement tuning machines.

Excellent Stratacoustic Type Guitar

This is a comfortable guitar to play.

playing this just unplugged isn't very good as the guitar isn't very loud. I plugged it into my Katana 50 on the acoustic amp setting and the guitar sounds amazing. the fret board is well done, no sharp frets. the bridge is a terrible piece of plastic, which i assume i'll have to replace down the road. But for the price i'm not bothered about that. Tuners work fine it stays in tune. I can't fault much with the guitar its pretty decent.

Full fretboard access with ease on an Acoustic Guitar!!!

Fantastic guitar. It's a Fender Stratacoustic at a third of the price. I wanted an acoustic that gave full easy access to all the frets without the huge neck heel that most electric acoustic have. With this guitar, i can play it just like an electric for some acoustic Hendrix tunes. Also, this sounds amazing through my Yamaha THR5A Acoustic Amp. As far as quality goes, the binding isn't perfect with some overspray which wasnt polished out before it was lacquered; but that's just cosmetic. Frets are good with no sharp edges or flat spots. Action was a bit high, but after filing down the underside of the bridge a little bit; it's fine and plays great. Tuners of course aren't as good as expensive ones but they work and stay in tune. Strap button is on the upper horn rather than the neck heel as shown in photos, but that's better to avoid the strap getting in your hand's way when at the top end of the neck. No bad points in my opinion. Over all, very happy; but wish they did some different models with pretty flamed tops rather than only plain glossy black.

Harley Benton ST-Acoustic Black

I bought this guitar recently and am very pleased with it. It is light and easy to play and has a great sound.