Harley Benton HBMA-50 Mandoline VS

I haven't had any prior experience with mandolins. I've bought it to check out if I like these instruments or not (it turned out I LOVE THEM!).

What hit me just after unpacking is that the body finish. The photos on the Thomann site implies something like 3 Tone Sunburst, when in fact it's more of a dull 2 Tone Sunburst. Not that bad, but not great either.

Mandolin arrived completely not set up - no intonation, no string height. The nut was a tad too high as well( first few frets were sharp tonewise) - sanding it off helped a lot. Frets are fine, the tuners are a bit hard to tune. Strings were not terrible, but rather on the bad side. Replacing them with D'addario improved the sound a lot and now the tuners keep the tune way better.

Soundwise - it's a twangy little beast with rather poor sounding G string. Anyway, it sounds like a mandolin. What else do you want for that money?

To conclude. Is it perfect instrument ? Not at all. Is it fun to play? Hell yes! Would I buy it again? Yup!

This is my first mandolin, and as I was unsure how I would take to it, opted for a low cost instrument. In fact, this is probably the cheapest mandolin on the market, at just £49, but despite the bargain basement price this is a good quality instrument. The 'Sunburst' finish I chose is superb, and the workmanship is excellent.
The setup is equally good, with just the saddle requiring a little lowering, easily accomplished via the inbuilt adjustment wheels. The bridge would benefit from some light sanding to achieve optimum intonation, but this is often the case in all but high-end instruments.
I'm happy with the sound at present, but may upgrade to top quality J74 strings, at around £10 a set, in due course.
All in all, am delighted with my purchase, representing outstanding value for money. It arrived from Thomann promptly and very well packed.

I have always wanted a Mandolin but, 40 odd years ago when I started playing guitars, they were simply out of my price range. When I saw this on Thomann’s website, as part of a bundle including a bag, I couldn’t resist and figured I would at least be able to try it out and see if I enjoyed playing it.
Well, after playing it daily for over two months now, it turns out that playing the mandolin is really addictive and that I love playing this little thing!

Pros: The mandolin comes well packed and strung, with padding under the bridge. You have to remove the padding and adjust the bridge to set the intonation. This is relatively simple to do and there are plenty of tutorials on line showing how to do it.
The truss-rod allows the neck to be adjusted, on mine it was fine as it came.
Overall the finish is nice and aside from inside of the f-holes I couldn’t find any blemishes.
The strings are OK, particularly for someone just familiarising themselves with playing a mandolin. Most musicians will eventually change them out for something better.
After an initial settling in period for the strings the instrument, unlike the cheap guitars from years ago, remains in tune. Since tuning a mandolin can be a bit of a chore this is great.
The sound is good for the price, it’s a twangy little instrument and sounds like a mandolin should.

Cons: I have no idea why Thomann chooses to ship these with the bridge installed. While mine was well packed and undamaged there is more chance of the instrument being damaged with the bridge installed, shipping it with the bridge off the instrument would, in my opinion, be better.

I realise the following may not be “traditional” but: While the sunburst colour is very nice some other colour options, like Thomann does with their violins, may be interesting. Those of us who own blue guitars would like a blue mandolin!

In conclusion: I am very happy with my purchase and have since recommended this instrument to others. If you have even given a moment’s thought to learning to play the mandolin but were put off by the cost of instruments then this is the perfect instrument for you! I may not sound as good as the more expensive solid wood instruments but it can certainly hold its own and is by no means a toy.