Harley Benton Delta Blues OE

I jagten efter en ny guitar, er lyden naturligvis det vigtigste, men en guitar må også gerne være indbydende og give mig lyst til at røre ved den. Min guitar skal give mig lyst til at tage den op og spille på, med andre ord.

Udover lyd og udseende, så skal en guitar også være til at betale.
Da jeg sidst var på guitar jagt, faldt valget på en Harley Benton Delta Blues OE: Den så godt ud og prisen var nærmest forbløffende. Det med lyden og spilbarheden var mere vanskeligt, da der var mulighed for selv at høre og spille guitaren før køb, men et par folk som jeg stolede på, forsikrede mig om, at den guitar var et særdeles behageligt instrument. Så jeg bestilte guitaren og modtog den efter ca. seks hverdage, på trods af Convid-19 krisen.

Selv med mine begrænsede evner på en guitar, så må jeg sige, at guitaren er et meget behageligt instrument at spille på. Den har en rigtig blød dyb lyd, men kan sagtens komme op på de høje lyse toner. Selv mellemtonen fylder godt ud og giver et samlet lydbillede, der lokker mig til at spille og øve igen og igen. Min model har en indbygget tuner, så på trods af maj måneds skiftende vejr - ude og inde, er det let at finde stemningen igen. Uden vejrskifte og forbliver instrumentet indendørs, så er der ikke meget brug for at stemme guitaren, der forholder sig stabilt, pålideligt og klar.
Det giver en god fornemmelse, at sidde med guitaren og røre træets overflade. Jeg er super glad for Harley Benton har valgt, at lade træets struktur og porer fremstå åbent og altså ikke druknet under et tyk lag poleret lak. Det ligner et instrument man kan have med sig ud i virkeligheden.
Med den sure mands briller på, kan der spottes en mikroskopisk “skønhedsfejl” eller to, men ikke mere end fregner på en piges kinder er “fejl”. Jeg finder hele guitaren velstøbt og godt konstrueret.
Derfor mine varmeste anbefalinger her fra.

The guitar arrived in good condition and apart from some glue residue under the bridge looks well built. All it needed was a tune up, and presto. For a cheap extra guitar it played well enough.

But: when i tuned to DADDAD open tuning, which is why i wanted the guitar, the low E (now D) rattled on 7 and 8th fret. As the action already was a bit high, i could not adjust neck, nut or bridge.
I decided to try a low E (052) from a Peavey 011 set, and that solved the problem.
The high E, and B string sound dull. This is a common complaint of the cheap HB 012 set, so I hope to solve that with the peavey 011 set, which i use for all my acoustic guitars.

I ordered at the same time the HB "baby taylor copy", which is excellent, for that price. Gave me confidence to order the Epiphone Riviera custom P93.

I've been playing for decades and own many guitars - a few very pricey, but most of them low - mid price but well set up - so I have a little experience. I had fairly low/realistic expectations of this guitar, but it's become my current favourite acoustic (for anything that's practical without a cutaway). I love the dark, smokey look of it, and the matt finish; as others have said, the blackburst is better in real life than in promotional pictures. It's very light in weight, so no problem to play for hours standing up. The sound is lovely acoustically, and plugged in, the piezo is as good as any other of it's type, tuner/eq is nice and easy to see/use. I have done some setting up - adjusted truss rod, levelled frets in a few spots, filed the nut, and shaved a little off the base of the bridge....but this is no more than I'd expect to do with a guitar costing 5 or 6 times the price. It was very playable out of the box, but the tweaks make it a real pleasure to play, so if you're not comfortable doing set ups, I'd recommend spending a few extra pounds getting your local guitar tech to check it over. I also changed the tuners - but more because I thought black ones would look better than because the stock ones were particularly bad. I'm kind of blown away by this bargain, and have only held back on a couple of stars because....well....it's a £100.00 guitar and I don't want you to think it's equal to a £5,000.00 guitar. It is very much equal to a lot of £500 or £600.00 guitars though, in my opinion, and for me, it has the perfect look and sound for the kind of alt country stuff I like to play acoustically, and it'll have it's first gig in a few day's time!