Harley Benton Traveler-Steel Reviews

Good for beginners practice

nice for learning chord changes etc sound quality is as to be expected for the price

Lots of un, but ultimately difficult to deal with.

Lovely build. Nice sound...bit Ukelele, bit Mandoliny 'cos of the small body, but nice. Balance absolutely terrible (again, small body). Action out of the box like a ski-slope, and too-heavy strings. But again fun and convenience factor is high. Can just pick it up and muck about, action means good slide sound and response so...

You get what you pay for

Buy a bottle of wood glue before the guitar arrives. You'll probably have to patch it a little here and there. Take a small and sharp wooden stick. Apply glue to gaps between parts with the sharp end. Spread with your finger tip. W surroundings clean with a towel where needed. Playing is fun. It feels more casual than a full guitar. You can take it with you almost anywhere in the bag that it comes in.

Nicht Schlecht, aber würde es nicht nochmal machen

Wegen dem gewicht unterschieds, ist es schwer die richtig zu spielen. Der sound ist nicht schlecht für den preis, und sie passt wirklich leicht überall hin da die klein ist. Aber nicht wirklich das beste. Der hals ist sehr schwer und der körper sehr sehr leicht. Etwas mehr Gewicht in dem Körper würde es einfacher machen, dies zu spielen.

Insane value to be honest

Ok, I am by no means a pro guitarist but I was bourn in 1985. Let me tell you, you got a shoebox salotaped to a loo roll in the 90s for this price of this lol. It sounds boxy, but it will, these guitars do, I wanted that sound anyway it's awesome. It's a fantastic guitar to just chill round the house with, lay down with, sit in an arm chair with, walk around with and basically do whatever you want with. I can see this being my go to for song writing now as it's just so handy. It's neck heavy of course but it still feels nice and well made. The finish isn't perfect but not worth knocking points off at this price range, believe me I'm pretty picky too. This was an impulse buy to be honest as I was just like damn that's cute 🤣 don't regret it though. Nice one, happy customer👌

Tiny and tinny.

To start with the positives, this is a nice looking guitar from a distance, and the neck on it is amazing for noodling.

However, this one isn't a strummer unless you're going to do some word on the bridge to intonate it. Obviously at this price point I wasn't expecting much in a little travel guitar, but I had been hoping I wouldn't have to put it up on the workbench to make it fully playable.

Also, the tone is fine when picking, but strumming is very tinny sounding. Again, I didn't get this to play in front of anyone but myself, so that doesn't matter, but the little body produces a tone that isn't overly similar to an acoustic guitar, as it's more like a ukulele.

Amazing

For the price of this guitar, everything about it is amazing, it looks incredible and the sound is good for what it is. Have just ordered my second Harley Benton and looking forward to hearing what that’s like!

Nice sound and good for Travelling

The frets may be a little bit sharp, but that doesn't bother me. The sound quality is absolutely fine for that price range. The size is not too big but also not too small, making it a great travel companion. One thing to note, however, is the small corpus with which it might be a bit unusual to play the guitar at the beginning since you can't rest your arm on the corpus but somehow have to balance the guitar when holding and playing. It's not that big of a deal since you can get used to it, but it's still worth mentioning. All in all, I'm pretty happy with the guitar, and for the price I can't even complain. It's a simple small guitar with a good sound. Thumbs up!!

Awesome for the price!

I took a chance on this as I needed something compact to throw in the back of the car along with my 5 year old son's random stuff (which means room is tight even for my parlour guitar). I didn't expect much for the price but I was very pleasantly surprised!

It's a great build. OK, it's not going to be worrying the likes of Martin and Taylor, but for the price it really punches above its weight. There are a couple of rough edges - a couple of bits on the binding and I can feel the fret ends, but nothing that a quick filing won't fix.

Action and intonation on it is good straight out of the box.

Sound is fine. It's light on bass (as expected for the size), and tonally is nothing special. But projection is surprisingly good.

Overall, this is a great little guitar. It's for travel, so not something that is designed as being a main instrument; it should be compact, cheap, and playable. And it does those things very very well.

Good for travel

I’ve been traveling eirh this guitar for months and it’s a very good option for travel. The size and weight make it easy for carrying it around (it is very light). The sound is suprising for the small body. I have played on the streets of Italy with it and chords were heard over the crowd.

Only fault is that the chords have to be pressed quite hard, making the hands more tired earlier but its alright after getting used to it.

Overall for the price, a very good choice!

Project build

OK, I decided to summarise my review as such: if you build a guitar, you go through 3 stages, 1, the cut and assembly of the instruments, 2 the finishing of the product, 3 quality control.

Here we have a product at stage 1, maybe 1.5. The frets are not "frets", but raw wire that is dangerous to the hands. Everything is unfinished and "sharp", the binding, the bridge, etc. But the fret ends are lethal.

Now, After a couple of hours of filing and sanding down, the instrument is now "finished" and I can review it as an instrument.

Beware that the scale is small. I am a "short man" and still, my fingers find it difficult to play even an E cord. The strings are cheese-wire quality level. The bridge also has to be sanded down and lowered. The neck needed to be straightened and the fingerboard oiled. I repeat and conclude: a cool and cheap "project guitar", but not a finished product.

Strongly not recommended for kids or beginners who could injure their hands along the neck.

Would I buy it again? Sure, for the money as an "expert" I can make it a cute travel guitar. Just beware.

Good for travel

Once you've done a little work on this instrument you could have a very capable travel/practice guitar - and if it did get lost or damaged you wouldn't lose sleep over it.

The work I did was: lower the saddle to reduce the action (and sanded the bridge down to accommodate), ramped the bridge holes, adjust the truss rod, smoothed a few rough fret edges and change the strings. Now it's ready. I can play it without a strap on my leg but you might prefer to use a strap to balance it. Worth noting that the case is very thin. I see you can buy a better one vis the link.

A guitar for the beach

Tuning can be wobbly, sound quite muffled… the perfect beach guitar.

Buy it!

I had this guitar for more than a month now, the product as out of the box is ready for the adventure, comes with its little gig bag, and an allen/hex wrench for adjusting the truss rod. For that price... Amazing!

Not long after, I've been asked to buy a second guitar for a friend so I tried both.

-First of all: A strap is a must in order to be able to play!

-The looks and the woods are so nice... better than the pictures could tell.

-Sound is surprisingly good considering the size, if you want to change the string set, consider .11 or thicker so you help the low frequencies ;-)

-Bridge might need tweaking, maybe a turn on the rod, as the action on one of them came way high.

For what is worth...everybody should have one, can't regret it.

Great for the price

This rating is for the understanding that it is only 58 euros. It came with a few tool marks in different places, the rosette is lifting where it meets the fretboard, and the fretboard was a bit dusty. However, once I cleaned it up, glued down the lifting sticker, and now it looks lovely. It sounds very nice for how small it is, and it is a nice size to play with when sitting around. It has low action so it is comfortable to play. My happiest suprise with this little guitar is that it has a radius fretboard, which I was not expecting on a guitar of this price range. I was also pleasantly suprised at the strings, which are much nicer than I was expecting. I mostly bought this just to get me through while my main guitar (Baby Taylor) is having some repairs done, but I think it will be good to have around after to practice on or take with me instead of risking my other guitar getting damaged when travelling.

So where to begin?

This guitar is a suprise in the shape of a parlor guitar.

-The whole guitar is in the shape of the old parlor/country cowboy guitars, so its nowhere near the good ol' dreadnought, so getting used to it is a must. But if you put a strap around it, then all your problems are solved and you will find no problen holding it.

- The fretboard is great, the frets themselves dont stick out on the sides and going up and down the fretboard is extremely comfortable. The roseacer wood feels great! Yet again Hartley Benton suprised me.

-The tuners themselves are standard tuners that do their jobs well and are built sturdy and good. You can change them if you dont like them but i didnt see the need for that since they are good.

-The bridge is well built and is shaped in such a way that it feels natural when you are strumming your guitar.

-The body is well built and it resonates sound well and even.

-The sound suprises you, because you expect it to be high as the body is so slim, but its full and loud and its suprises listeners because they never expect a full body acoustic sound out of such a guitar! Amazing

For such a low price you get a unique acoustic parlor guitar that you can take anywhere, and the build quality is amazing for such a low price.

So do you want to sit by a campfire under the starry night and pretend youre an outlaw country legend like Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings or Johnny Cash? Or even if you feel the Mississippi delta blues of Robert Johnson? Well even if you want to be that person at a party who always picks up a guitar and goes "anyways, heres wonderwall)", or even if youre chilling in your home during this uncertain times and you need some good ol' acoustic music in your life, well then this is the ideal guitar for you!

This is my second Harley Benton guitar and i plan to expand that number for sure!

Decent travel guitar

The shape is quite uncomfortable. The sound wasn't great, but with new strings this problem was solved. There is a huge difference between strumming and picking. Would say this guitar is really suited for a fingerpicking playing style. Overall, it does the job.

Very nice guitar

Surprisingly good quality for this price, definitely a keeper. Good tuners, perfect binding, and, as expected, a slight neck dive. I'll carry with me when I travel.

Shipping was fast, and it arrived in impeccable condition.

Very practical and well priced

This is a great little guitar, essentially a modern take on the parlour guitar. Like those, it sounds a touch boxy strummed (I think it adds character!) but brilliant for fingerpicking.

As with almost all of my Harley Bentons, it arrived from Germany to the UK still mostly in tune, and it holds tuning well. The action is a touch high - I intend to sand down the saddle when I next change the strings (although I've grown to quite like the action and how it changes my playing!) Its size is perfect for always having it down by the side of the sofa.

If you want a convenient, good quality guitar I can recommend this one, especially if you are fingerpicking/considering the parlour type sound.

Excellent guitar - medium issue

I was completely pleased with this guitar despite a small problem that only came to my attention today...3 of the tuners seems to have been placed without any care for alignment...it's the only thing that put's a minus on this guitar, despite that build it's excellent. Now I'm gonna have to spend nearly the same amount of money on tuners that I've spent on the guitar...