Harley Benton CLG-650SM-CE BK SolidWood

This guitar is very nicely finished! The first thing I did was take this guitar to a luthier for adjustment. The strings were way too high. The nut and bridge were way too high. Tuning machines were not fixed. The guitar now plays great, but it required extra costs! After 5 minutes of playing my fingertips were black! At first I was absolutely not satisfied with the guitar. I made some minor changes. I have replaced the plastic bridge pins with ebony bridge pins. Another set of strings on it, namely Elixir. Fretboard oiled. And I removed the tuners and replaced them with Klusons.
The guitar now plays and sounds fantastic.

totally fell in love with the design at first sight so went for it.
and what can i say...
it arrived in about a week in spain.
opened the box and was pleasantly surprised. it looks just perfect in my opinion.
the finish, the wood, the armrest, everything is top notch, it really looks like a far more expensive instrument.
the setup was quite ok, i did lower the action a little bit as is was too high for my taste. nothing that couldn´t be fixed in 10 minutes ;-)
the frets needed a polish as they were a bit rough. again an easy fix. fret ends were good, no sharp edges.
had a bit of a problem at first with the 12 gauge strings because i was used to 10s(not the guitar´s fault anyway), but after a couple of days i got used to it and now i think it just plays beautifully.
the sound is very warm and quite loud even unplugged.
the pu is good as well, i like the different design as its tinier than the usual square ones and does it´s job really well.
also has a built in tuner which is great.
the stock mechanics are good with a good ratio. i changed them to black chrome ones but only for estetical reasons. changed the pins to black ebony ones as well for the same reason.
i am really happy with this guitar, would recommend and would definately buy it again. the price is more than reasonable for that instrument. good job thomann.
pros
the design
plays really well
warm, rich and loud sound
armrest

cons

frets needed polish
strings have to be loosened to change battery

other than those not really major issues i can´t say anything bad about it. beautiful and great guitar

When I saw this Mahogany body with the black face it struck me as one of the most beautiful, classy acoustics I had ever seen. I almost did NOT buy it because I really didn't believe the real thing could live up to the photos.

OOOh Man! The dak mahogany accented by the lighter wood trim - almost like pinstriping - is really a show stopper. And if that wasn't enough, they had to go and provide this instrument with a great set up. I have a Zager 900, recognized as one of the easiest to play acoustics anywhere - this plays just and smooth and easy. To believe the sound that comes out of this guitar you have to hear it. They really need to put samples up.

The only fault I could find with this instrument was the composite fretboard. On the one hand, it feels a bit scratchy when you perform a bend, but on the other, it seems to hold up to the very low humidity here a lot better than my Zager, which is Rosewood.

Hey - it really is a very beautiful guitar, and it really does play well, and it really does sound great.