Harley Benton HBJ-24 Short Scale Tenor Banjo

This is my first tenor banjo and I was pleasantly surprised by it - the action is very low, it’s easy to play and sounds pleasant for the money. Unfortunately it doesn’t have much of the characteristic banjo “twang” — but you can’t really expect everything at this ridiculously affordable price point, can you?

It’s tuned to CGDA by default and plays quite well, but I mostly play Irish trad so retuned it to GDAE. Unfortunately as many others have remarked, the tuners don’t really hold tuning well at this much lower tension — and the banjo is also less in tune with itself (eg some o stave intervals are off while others are OK). I also had to tighten the banjo head to get the proper sound back (but that’s actually easy, just search on YouTube for a tutorial).

Overall, it’s was perfect for my first year of banjo playing - but now I’m ready for an upgrade.