Harley Benton ST-Acoustic Black

Vaimo on laulaja ja halusi oppia säestämään itseään. Hän kokeili minun akustisia kitaroita ja valitti, että mikään ei oikein istu syliin. No, kun on lyhyt selkä ja kohtuullinen rintavarustus, niin normaali koppainen kitara ei mahdu syliin. Tämä HBn Fender kopio on kapea ja sopii loistavasti. Akustinen saundi on hieman "muovinen" niin kuin tällaisessa kitarassa on. Vaihdoin hyvät kielet ja soundi muutti raikkaammaksi. Kitara on kaunis, kaula miellyttävä käteen ja viimeistely erinomaista ja käsittämättömän halpa. Taidan lainata tätä ja kokeilla treenikämpällä miten se laulaa vahvarin läpi.

Tässä hintaluokassa ei kannata odottaa täydellisyyttä. Nauhat eivät ole plaanissa ainakaan tässä yksilössä, jonka itse sain. Soitto se ei erityisen paljon häiritse, koska tämä palvelee olohuoneessa "yleiskitarana", johon voi tarttua kun huvittaa. Virittimet ovat myös tunnottomat, mutta niiden kanssa pärjää.
Noin muutoin kitaran kaulan on mukava ja paremmat kielet vaihtamalla äänimaailma on ihan hyvä.
Tämä kitara sopii niille, jotka haluavat halvalla akustista soundia sähkökitaran kaulalla - halvalla. Jos tämä on ainoa instrumenttisi tai esim- keikkakäyttöön, niin suosittelen ostamaan jonkin kalliimman tuotteen.

Overall this is a really nice addition to the HB stable. I suspect the one I received probably should have been a "B" stock. There are globs of what appears to be epoxy or some other adhesive substance in the sound chamber of the particular guitar I received, but it doesn't seem to be affecting playability. The sound is a bit deader than I expected, but in fairness that could be the ABS body simply doesn't resonate as well with that adhesive in the sound chamber. (I was not able to get a mirror in there to tell conclusively.) Still, this is a really nice guitar. No discoloration on the binding and no fret sprout. All I did was oil up the fretboard a little bit and it seems fine. The fretboard looks great and the frets themselves were highly polished on arrival.

After my initial testing, I did swap out the stock tuners for some locking tuners and roller-type string trees. I did have to adjust the truss rod a little bit as the action was a bit higher than expected. (It was .012 on the bass side and .10 on the treble side.) Once adjusted it dropped into a very playable state. Even with these somewhat minor issues, I am still a solidly loyal HB customer. I think that I just got that one-in-a-million glob of adhesive on mine in the sound cavity as I do not hear of anyone else having this problem.

I plugged it up to a Katana Air amp I have and on the acoustic setting. In both plugged and unplugged states, it sounds good. Again, not quite as resonant as I was expecting, but still really good.

This compares well with my other acoustic and semi-hollow guitars and I believe I will get a fair amount of use out of it. Love the black finish and it just gleams!

Thanks, Thomann. A great product (minus the few comments above.)

Update Nov 23, 2021: After spending quite a bit of time playing with this guitar, I have decided to revise my comments. While the epoxy inside is not visually pleasing, it does not in any way detract from the playability of the instrument. I did a couple of small upgrades (new tuners and shaved a tiny bit off the bottom of the bridge) which dramatically improved its playability. Not everyone is comfortable working on their guitars and I don't recommend this to everyone, but with a few small tweaks these guitars become highly playable and sound great. I would highly recommend this ST-Acoustic to anyone. I have found it to be the guitar I typically pick up when I am going to work on writing music as it is light, easy to play now, and sounds good for my own style of use.