Harley Benton D-200CE-12BK

A cutaway electric 12 string for 118euro. Can it possibly be any good at this price?

Yes it can- and indeed is!

Just for the record, at the price I paid,I have given it a deserved 5 stars all round. To be fair, had it been priced at say £3000 it wouldn't have scored quite so well.

Visually it's a looker. Cream bound neck and cream bound body set off the black bodywork to perfection. To be picky, I could comment that the paintwork is a bit thin, but then thin paint gives the wood more opportunity to produce a good sound. As is to be expected at this price, the top (and sides and back) are going to be laminate, and the strings are not from the top price range, but that doesn't stop this baby from producing a surprisingly good tone. One of the first things I normally do on a new guitar is change the strings, but I just don't think it needs it. And volume is very good too..
Straight out of the box it was very nearly in tune, and absolutely playable, with no sharp fret ends, which is very creditable. Like just about every guitar you buy- from anywhere and at any price (at least under around £500-£600) it will greatly benefit from being breathed upon by a good luthier. As supplied, the truss rod is pretty well set, although measuring might well yield some minor improvement. The bridge and nut can certainly be lowered, speeding up the action. The frets are pretty level and would be adequate for most people, but fret levelling and polishing would improve this guitar even more.
Ok, like some other reviewers, I have gone on about setups, Please accept that this guitar is NOT inferior- it's jut that setting up is very time consuming, and would put up the initial price, so manufacturers cut back. But this guitar is so good to begin with that any additional work by a good luthier would be well worth it- and I would go so far as to say that spending say £75 on a full fret level and polish, plus a set up would produce a guitar that would easily match any guitar on a shop wall costing £400

Pros:

The guitar came safely packaged in perfect aesthetic condition.

Out of the box the guitar is decently playable with no buzzing across any of the frets.

The tuners hold tune well and the strings sound good.

The pickup system works as it should, they even give you a free 9v battery.

Cons:

I have the guitar tuned to D standard and the intonation is a bit off. I would need to reshape the guitar saddle and compensate each of the strings individually to get perfect intonation. For the amount of money I paid I can't complain as even much more expensive 12 strings have intonation problems.

To get ideal action I will have to deepen the string slots at the nut by a small amount, after that the guitar will be even more playable.

Another con is that the frets need to be polished, but they are well seated, leveled and the edges are smooth. You won't really bend strings on a 12 string so it's not a big deal that the frets aren't polished.

Overall:

I don't think there's a better budget 12 string guitar out there to be found. All of the cons are minor things and easily fixable.

All I need to do now is practice, fingerpicking a 12 string is much harder than a 6 string. I basically have to relearn my picking technique to get the strings to ring properly.