Harley Benton Custom Line King-CE NT

I play for 40 years, have 12 various guitars and play semi pro.
I have 4 acoustic guitars, from classic, dreadnought, grand auditorium and now also jumbo.

I really bought this guitar just for fun, because it's price is very nice and I read and saw some excelent reviews. I allways liked SJ-200 natural, but never found enough reason to actually buy it, as it is pretty expensive and my desire was never that strong.

With this one, one just can not go wrong. You get plenty of guitar for the money, excellent built, setup, solid electronics.

From the moment of unwrapping this guitar looks like it is triple or four times the price. It is very nice to play, excellent setup with Daddario EXP16 0,12 gauge.
neck is setup perfectly, action great and suitable for this kind of acoustic guitar.
And here we come to the next - what is this guitar meant for.
This is strumming type of guitar with rich and deep sound. Very neutral without any special character (martin, taylor, gibson sound...) resembling more to Ibanez or PRS neutral sound.
Since I have it only two days, this can be partly because acoustics get their character after some time of playing and when the wood properly matures.
This guitar has some raw spruce scent that makes me think, that wood could be a bit forced, so I will wait some time and be carefull, that I don't dry it out.
I expect, that harmonics will develop through time and use, right now it's more strings that give character to the sound.
So, when comparing this guitar to my grand auditorium Tanglewood TW170ASCE, Tanglewood sounds more mature, less deep bass but splendid mids and highs for fingerpicking, less for strumming.
Jumbo King CENT is quite opposite - mellow at fingerpicking, but great at open and full chords strumming.
But that is basically, what was expected from shape and wood and why I did buy this guitar.
I didn't expect much and I was pleasantly surprised and I still don't expect much, mut i see that this guitar has some potential to be more than just solid instrument.
But time will tell.
Anyway, great use of money and totaly worth it. Everybody that saw it, immediately guessed the price range of around 1000? or even more.

Edited after few months:
sound: developed more to typical Gibson SJ200 sound, sounds great when recorded.
as to mellow sound - it's not that, it is just that increased lower tones give different sound to high strings.
when played hard, this guitar roars!
action: set up high for strumming which it does excelently. If one wants to lower action, the whole mustache bridge has to be lowered. If you lower the action, some of the roar when strummed hard goes away.
Guitar tunes excelent and keeps tunning astonishingly.
Anyway, this guitar is not so much for gentle fingerpicking (jumbo's never meant to be anyway...) or it looses much of character.

Changed strings to D'addario EXP 12-56. It works great.

I had not expected what I had received to be so well finished. I had been wanting to give HB a go and was honestly looking for a 7 string electric. On a whim, I decided to look at HB's line of acoustics. A on line forum to which I belong had only good things to say about the electrics. When I saw the Custom Line King pictures it caught me eye. I have a thing for blonde guitars. I had been wanting a good sounding full body acoustic. I put the 7 string aside for purchasing for another year and went ahead to take a gamble on this acoustic. At this price point even if it was just OK, I would be happy. There where a few hiccups in the ordering system as I wanted to split the payment across two methods. Calling customer support, we were able to get the transaction complete. Transaction on a Monday, guitar arrived on Thursday. That was a pleasant surprise and unexpected. Having let the guitar rest overnight, my first impression was 'WOW!'. I looked so much better in my hands. Beautiful. I ran my hand over every edge. I feel nothing but smoothness. Looked for gaps in the binding, the rosette, the neck heel. Perfect. Ran my hand down each side if the fret board. Smooth. Put a battery in for the tuner and tuned it up. The tuner worked well, tuning heads were smooth. I was trying to find fault in the build or finish that would say this is an inexpensive guitar but could not. Even after playing for a couple hours, I didn't find any faults.
Like Rocky, this guitar punches well above to price point. Thank you Thomann.

Используется в домашней студии, иногда - на концертах.
Ни к дереву, ни к машинкам абсолютно никаких вопросов.
Гриф ровный, анкер отзывчивый. Лады - 13 пришлось один закатать на полмиллиметра, это не проблема.
Порожки - хоть и пластмасса, но очень достойные, желающие - могут поменять, я не стал.
Струны поменял на 013-056, понравилось больше. Пришлось бриджевый порожек поднимать, подложил отрезок басовой струны :)
Пьезосниматель - на уровне, но ничего особенного. Сколько видел гитар - понимаю что у всех пьезы стоят только для удобства на концертах, правильней снимать микрофоном.
Тьюнер - нормальный. Мелковат дисплей, и нет индикатора включения, несколько раз оставил включенным, за ночь батарейка разряжается.
В целом - рекомендую к покупке, за такие деньги лучше не найдешь.