Harley Benton D-200CE-12BK

A cutaway electric 12 string for 118euro. Can it possibly be any good at this price?

Yes it can- and indeed is!

Just for the record, at the price I paid,I have given it a deserved 5 stars all round. To be fair, had it been priced at say £3000 it wouldn't have scored quite so well.

Visually it's a looker. Cream bound neck and cream bound body set off the black bodywork to perfection. To be picky, I could comment that the paintwork is a bit thin, but then thin paint gives the wood more opportunity to produce a good sound. As is to be expected at this price, the top (and sides and back) are going to be laminate, and the strings are not from the top price range, but that doesn't stop this baby from producing a surprisingly good tone. One of the first things I normally do on a new guitar is change the strings, but I just don't think it needs it. And volume is very good too..
Straight out of the box it was very nearly in tune, and absolutely playable, with no sharp fret ends, which is very creditable. Like just about every guitar you buy- from anywhere and at any price (at least under around £500-£600) it will greatly benefit from being breathed upon by a good luthier. As supplied, the truss rod is pretty well set, although measuring might well yield some minor improvement. The bridge and nut can certainly be lowered, speeding up the action. The frets are pretty level and would be adequate for most people, but fret levelling and polishing would improve this guitar even more.
Ok, like some other reviewers, I have gone on about setups, Please accept that this guitar is NOT inferior- it's jut that setting up is very time consuming, and would put up the initial price, so manufacturers cut back. But this guitar is so good to begin with that any additional work by a good luthier would be well worth it- and I would go so far as to say that spending say £75 on a full fret level and polish, plus a set up would produce a guitar that would easily match any guitar on a shop wall costing £400

I bought this guitar as sort of an add-on to another HB I ordered.

I'm not sure if this problem was weather-related or not, but the strings were wound VERY tightly. When I started to tune the guitar, the high G snapped as soon as I started to turn the tuning knob, so now I need to order strings. Also, this guitar has a lot of headstock "dive", meaning it wants to droop forward. The body is way light for such a huge headstock. Maybe this is a thing with 12-strings, but I didn't notice it the last time I played one.

When I removed the broken string, I noticed that this guitar has the rattly tuners that my HB 35 had (which I replaced) but I'm not sure I want to spring for 12 new tuning machines.

I also noticed a couple of blems in the finish. One at the top of the headstock, and one in the sound hole. They're not B-stock bad, so I can ignore them.

So, my third HB and my first non-great one. Hopefully a fluke.

I am a very happy HB customer, not only did all my product arrive in perfect order.....took the guitar from the box and it was 100% perfect, not a mark or anything. Cleaned it with a cloth and oiled the fret-board then tuned it up, Sound, play-ability and tone is amazing. This is a 500+ guitar and more any day of the week. HB if you keep this up some of the fancy names are in trouble.............enough talking, time to play!!! Wow, what value!!! Yes, I am very happy indeed!!

Jan Strydom
Tel Aviv