Harley Benton Custom Line Superior-E VS

O chitară care-și merită din plin banii. Sunt la a doua acustică HB și a treia chitară HB pe care le dețin. Acest CL Superior E VS are un sunet absolut impresionant pentru un dreadnought, attack imens, armonici superioare din plin și un sustain pe măsură, doar că trebuiesc neapărat schimbate corzile ca sa poată fi pusă în valoare. Vine cu niște corzi fosfor bronz Adamas (o marcă de corzi foarte bună), doar că fosfor bronzul nu performează deloc bine pe acustica asta, sunetul e unul foarte anemic. Neapărat schimbate cu niște corzi de alamă (80/20), iar chitara prinde brusc viață, sună mult mai plin și aș putea spune, paradoxal, își păstrează cam 90% din armonicile superioare care se regăseau la corzile fosfor bronz. Ciudat, nu? Probabil e o caracteristica a modului în care e construită chitara la interior, aranjamentul punților etc. Așadar, neapărat schimbate corzile cu unele 80/20. O să-mi mulțumiți mai târziu. Am făcut zeci de teste cu ea, mai dețin încă patru chitări acustice, iar chitara de referință cu care am făcut comparația a fost mult apreciata Yamaha FG830. Reușește să se apropie la un 80% de FG830, atât de bine se comportă. Deosebirea e că CL Superior E VS are ceva mai multe medii, până la urmă recreează cu succes sunetul specific al mărcii din care se inspiră. E prima chitară cu eclisă și spate de okoume pe care cânt, iar ca opinie personală, aș zice că sunetul are caracteristici undeva între arțar și palisandru, notele fundamentale se disting oarecum, dar în același timp armonicile superioare își fac simțită prezența din plin. Una peste alta, o chitară care m-a surprins plăcut prin calitate. O recomand fără ezitare!

Delivered within 4 days well packaged and undamaged. but with faults the action is very high, I hope I can get it down enough by getting someone to take something of the bridge.
Whoever did the faux mother of pearl markers on the neck must have been a completely untrained amateur none of them are level they look atrocious they are so far out and at such an angle that where it is level with the string at the bottom the top part has over an eighth of an inch showing, and you can see through some of them where so much has been gouged out that you can see the indentation through the marker and there are black bits of glue or something on the edges as well and even the sizes and shade don't match.
The tuners seem firm enough but they turn and nothing happens and then suddenly they start to catch, once in tune they are ok but they make tuning awkward and more time consuming, something I can live with as they stay in tune once set, but a niggle all the same.
The action and the markers are the two really disappointing things, hopefully I can get someone to improve the action, but I can do nothing with the inlays on the neck, they look really stupid, how they got through quality control I don't know, they stand out like a sore thumb, which is a shame as the guitar otherwise looks and sounds really good.
I can't send it back, at the price it is not worth all the trouble of re-packaging and sorting out post, but someone needs to be told about the workmanship on the inlays, no professional could have done those, even an apprentice wouldn't have done work so bad, I would be interested to know how it occured and who did it.

After a couple of weeks, here my thoughts on the Harley Benton Superior E-VS.

This guitar looks quite good. At first look, it's beautiful: the woods are nice, the binding around the body and neck is flawless and overall doesn't look like a cheap guitar.
I think that the sunbutst looks awesome (the photos don't do it justice) and i love the headstock logo and shape.
Nontheless, if you pay attention to the details, then you can find some minor flaws. The blocks are a bit asymmetrical and there were some traces of glue around them (but it was esay to clear It).
The pickguard is very ugly and i think i will replace It as soon as possibile.

The construction is solid and i don't have any complaint about it.
The neck is straight and the frets are perfect, there are no sharp edges, dead spots or buzzing even if the action is quite low.
The neck is also very comfortable to play, even if i have small hands.
I love the vintage looking tuners: they are pretty decent, not the best in the world, but they do their job quite well.

And now the most important part: this guitar sounds very very good.
Like the real thing, it has a lot of attack, with a very brillant sound and balanced bottom (to be honest, it lacks a bit of it to really sound like a gibson hummingbird).
The strumming is where this guitar really shines, but it does a very good job also with fingerpicking.

Overall this is a very good guitar, far better than its Epiphone counterpart.
And of you think that i paid it 220 euros (including shipping and a gig bag) this is an incredible deal.
Once again Harley Benton proved to be a very good brand, and maybe the one with the best value for the money on the market.

Well done HB!

I must say right away that the guitar was delivered to me in excellent condition. Oftentimes I am afraid to risk buying such things for delivery. I had no complaints about the build quality.
The guitar very quickly became the mainstay in my arsenal. I very often heard only good reviews about Harley Benton guitars, so I was not surprised by such a gift.
In general I use this guitar on recordings at home. I may not be entirely happy with the pickup, but many other guitars are even worse for this price. However, all problems disappear when you record it on the line and on the microphone at the same time (however, as it should be). In general, this is more of a niggle than a flaw.
Personally, I think this guitar is great for strumming. With such a deep sound, she perfectly plays along with my girlfriend's vocals.
Before that I mainly played Epiphone ej200ce among acoustic guitars. It may sound strange, but Benton overshadowed it.
From Russia with love
Thank you so much for giving me something that finally satisfied most of my musical needs.