Harley Benton Custom Line CLA-28VE WN

The guitar arrived safely and well packaged as usual by Thomann. Out of the box it was essentially unplayable due to the extremely high action due to the height of the bridge and ‘upbow’ in the neck which was easily adjusted with the truss rod wrench (supplied). 30 minutes spent working on adjusting / sanding down the bridge produced a good action. Some sharp fret ends needed dressing and I also rolled the fingerboard edges to reduce the sharp fretboard edges. The gears on some of the tuners slip and are far from precise.

Overall the sound of the guitar ‘unplugged’ is dull, lifeless and lacks projection and volume . Open chords lack any ‘ring’ or sustain and bar chords lack volume and articulation. The onboard Fishman mic is okay.

In summary, the difficulty with this guitar was that it arrived with a number of ‘set up’ problems that were potentially rectifiable, however in order to see the potential of the guitar in terms of how it could play and sound a significant amount of work had to be carried out which involved altering the guitar’s original ‘shop state’, after which it could not be returned. In retrospect I regret not returning the guitar after receiving it. If the guitar I received is a fair general reflection of this model, I would suggest it’s one to avoid.