Harley Benton HBJ-25

I've been playing acoustic guitar for some years now, but I've always been into the happy and cheerful sound of banjos. More out of curiosity than anything else, and knowing I wouldn't become the best banjo player around, I bought this Harley Benton as a first step into the world of banjos. My experience when beginning to play a new instrument is not to go for a top-notch expensive one, but to avoid the cheapest ones too in order to not get a wrong idea of how it sounds. As such, this Harley Benton Banjo is perfect for beginners, and quality/price wise, I've found it to be a great deal!

Pros:
-It's a banjo!
-It's cheap, and best of all, it's great quality for what you pay
-Visually, this banjo has a beautiful finish and definitely catches the eye
-Really great sound for a beginner's instrument.

Cons:
-Assembly of the instrument could have been a bit better. My banjo was screwed incorrectly in one place attaching to the strap, but that's easily corrected by oneself and a screwdriver.
-I found the 5th string to produce a buzzing sound which I actually found very annoying (scithar-like), and found out the string was too low on the neck. Once I found the source of the problem, this was easily corrected by raising the string a bit from the bridge (a wooden plug or anything really does the job).

Conclusion:
I guess my banjo wasn't perfect and it did have a couple of assembly flaws, which however were easily corrected. Soundwise, this is a great product to get oneself starting in the world of banjo playing, and it's beautiful to say the least! All in all, a good product for a very good price

Harley Benton have produced an amazing banjo for an unbelievable price. Other than tune it and change the strings over the last year I have had to do nothing to it. The fit and finish is excellent. The fretwork was perfect and no sharp edges. The woods used look and feel really nice and like I said it was playable straight out of the box.
The only one negative comment about the banjo I have is that the tuners were not the best. It was quite difficult to tune and went out of tune easily but for the money you can't complain.
I would definitely recommend this banjo to any aspiring players out there on a tight budget. Exceptional value for money.

Just starting off on the banjo scene I didn't want to spend a small fortune till I could master the basics. I looked at several entry level banjos and the Harley Benton was a winner in its class. The build quality is excellent and it just doesn't look or sound like a cheap bit of kit. It is very hard to fault and I don't know how they do it for the price. The only problem is that I have stubby fingers and find the narrow neck (30 mm nut) a tad small for my fretting hand. Other than that I am very pleased with my purchase. If your just starting out and on a tight budget look no further. Shipping is also first class.

I bought this banjo back when its price was under 100 Euro, but it is definitly far more than that. Originally it was meant as present for my 5 years old son. He was absolutely crazy to Bela Fleck videos and saw his Africa travelling music movie several times.

Besides he liked noodling on this instrument with metal slide, i realized that i can record some serious catchy melodies and add unusual flavor to half finished downtempo songs (banjo miked with Audix and Shure dynamic microphones, went through Line6 PodX3 Live). During year and a half these record earned on audiostock more than twice of price paid for it ! Wow.

Okay, it was my first touch with banjo, action on higher frets is kind of high, but construction is lasting and sturdy till today. As first banjo, i can only reccomend and i would move to electrify it with some Fishman sticky pickup for adding more electric dimension to that specific sound. Still have original factory strings on it.

Also it is my first experience with Harley Benton brand. Althrough weird name for musician isntrument company (sound like singer from death metal growlers Deicide meets bikers realm, ugh....), i will definitely try more of their fine price/performance instruments...

I wanted to add a banjo to my collection, but as always for a new instrument, starting off with something affordable in case I end up not enjoying it. This banjo was a pleasant surprise. For the price it has a good sound and is pleasant and easy to play - a great instrument to just pick up and learn with. It holds tune well, the action suits me fine, and out-of-box there was only a slight buzz on one string. I'm having a lot of fun with this instrument and may well upgrade in the future.

That said, at this price point the build quality isn't great. The bridge in particular is just CNC cut plywood, not even sanded smooth so there's burrs left over from cutting. On the body there are some stains of what I think is tiny drops of varnish, but it's only cosmetic and hard to spot. The strap attachment points have nearly come off twice, though that's easily fixed (and I rarely use a strap anyway). With that said, the important things (bridge, body, nut, tuners...) feel well-made and solid, so I feel like the design philosophy was "let's make a genuinely good starter instrument, as cheap as possible without really sacrificing quality and playability", rather than just trying to make a cheap approximation of an instrument.

I definitely recommend this as a starter banjo for beginners. It's very playable, built well enough, and a lot of fun.

If you're checking out this banjo, it's pretty likely that you're like me and you wanted to pick up and learn the instrument without breaking the bank. If that's your story, then this banjo is perfect for you.

The sound was exactly what I expected directly out of the box. I basically just checked the intonation, shifted the bridge a bit, tuned her up and she sounded great. Eventually I decided that I wanted to play it without the resonator and it can be pretty easily removed and still played somewhat comfortably. Getting it back on is another story, but it is what it is.

I was honestly surprised at what I got for the money I spent. It was well worth the investment and it's a great piece of equipment to learn on. Looks great on the wall, too!

Pros:
- Bright and beautiful sound for the price
- Decent intonation and pretty durable hardware
- Removable resonator

Cons:
- Neck bends quite easily, affecting intonation at times
- Resonator can be a little hassle to adjust/secure into place

This is the second instrument I purchased from the Harley Benton line, and I have had the same experience with both.
This banjo looks fantastic and sounds rather good too. Straight out of the box, the action was... 'perfect' would be an exaggeration, but it was more than playable.
At such a low price Thomann obviously have to make sacrifices, and this might be reflected in the build quality - in my case the pegs attaching the resonator to the frame were very fragile and one had broken, but this was an easy fix.
I'm very happy with the purchase, and look forward to expanding my collection with more Harley Bentons in the future.