Harley Benton CLF-200 WN

I bought this guitar to help me back into acoustic fingerpicking. I used to be exclusively an acoustic performer till a hand injury forced me over to easier playing with electrics. I'm very neck profile fussy, which was a major consideration with this purchase. The one thing I know with Harley Benton is virtually every instrument has the same neck profile... And I like it. Quality of build is way above price point, and all solid woods, great. Inlays aren't the best. plenty of filler padding out what would be a loose fit, but hey it's not a four grand Martin is it? The guitar has a lovely voice, the walnut back and sides (my first experience of it as a tone wood) are an excellent compromise between rosewood and mahogany. Very well balanced projection.
Major CON: The tuners on this instrument are a complete joke. Plastic capstan classical style and not fit for purpose. Slot head guitars have enough tuning issues due to their design. They certainly don't need this sort of cock up to ruin it further. Plastic are fine if your instrument is nylon strung, but the extra tension of steel strings require far better build quality in tuners. Eventually these plastic capstans are going to crack and break. Guaranteed. Tuning stability is pathetic, and tuning up on this guitar is one of the most difficult and frustrating things I've ever done. It's virtually impossible. with it slipping and jumping in pitch constantly. However, if you are handy and able to do the job yourself and find a set that will fit, changing the tuners to a set with steel or brass capstans turns this little parlour into a gem of a guitar. For crying out loud Thomann this should not be an issue with all your experience. The Harley Benton 'Big Tone' had totally the wrong Bigsby style trem. forcing way more pressure onto the floating bridge than it could handle and now this! Come on I know you can do better. Listen to your customers. Silly little design flaws are really annoying in light of how good 98% of the instrument is, just to be let down by poor tuners? That's my honest opinion and sadly only 3 stars even though mine is now a 5 star guitar.

I planned to use this guitar at home for light playing. The parlor size and inlay, quality components and rave reviews got to me. The walnut back seemed cool. I read up and learned I might need to do basic setup (sand frets, change strings, adjust truss rod). I did this stuff and it was no big deal. So now I have shiny frets, new strings, proper action (was ok to begin with!) and it stays in tune just fine. The guitar is super light and plays really easily.

This is the first new guitar I've bought for myself in 15 years. My other guitars are a Martins, 2 Taylors and a USA strat. I've never bought an 'entry level' guitar because I need good sound to want to play at all.

At first I didn't like the sound of this Harley Benton. It sounded boxy and closed. But after a week of playing it's sounding better. It actually sounds better than my Taylor 420R from 1993, but not as good as my Martin D16-RGT, of course.

It's neat to have a Parlor sized guitar