Harley Benton MA-500 VS Bluegrass Series

108

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Electric Mandolin

Body: Basswood
Neck: Maple
Neck attachment: Bolt-on
Fretboard: Amaranth
Fretboard inlays: Dot
Neck profile: Rounded V
Bindings: Cream-coloured
20 Frets
Scale: 350 mm
Nut width: 28 mm
Double action truss rod
Pickups: 2 Single coils
Controls: Volume - Tone
3-Way switch
Hardware: Chrome
Machine heads: Diecast
String gauges: .011 - .014 - .025w -. 039w
Colour: Vintage Sunburst, High-gloss
Corresponding gig bag available under Article Nr 152480 (not included)

30 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee

3 3-Year Thomann Warranty

available since April 2009

Item number 220549

sales unit 1 piece(s)

Shape E Mandoline

Color Sunburst

Body Basswood

Top None

Neck Maple

Pickup System Yes

Incl. Case No

Incl. Gigbag No

Scale 350

£105

Including VAT; Excluding £10 shipping

Delivery approx. between Friday, 24.03. and Monday, 27.03.

Sales Rank

in Mandolins

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108 Customer ratings

5 45 Customers 4 43 Customers 3 12 Customers 2 5 Customers 1 3 Customers

4.1 / 5

features

sound

quality

Review guidelines

81 Reviews

Great instrument -- but needs work

JontyH 19.03.2022

This is a fine instrument - but it needs work to realise it's full potential.
The fret ends are not just badly finished - they are totally unfinished!!! They feel sharp and unpleasant and will need a lot of work with a fret file. Out of the box, the nut was too high and the action on the verge of unplayable. It looks like they just bolted it together and rushed it out of the factory. However!!! With work - reducing the height of the nut, lowering the action and setting the intonation, it starts to come alive. For a buyer not prepared or skilled enough to make the changes -- this instrument would be a big disappointment and would need an expensive visit to a luthier to get it right. If you have average skills and enjoy tinkering with instruments then you can make the basic improvements yourself. There's a great instrument in there --- it just needs bringing out. Apart from the playability issues, the standard of finish is exceptionally high. Better quality control needed on the frets, the nut and bridge saddles.

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Tragically flawed

Jezosaurus 30.08.2020

This arrived thrown together without any testing or quality control. It took quite some time to set the intonation, only to eventually realise that the nut wasn't cut properly and it was impossible to tune well enough to be playable.

The Bridge won't allow the G strings to be set low enough and intonated correctly at the same time. The tuners have considerable play in them. Knock the bridge and it goes instantly out of tune.

Having said that, it sounds fabulous through a long reverb and benefits from a bit of compression and distortion. The pickups give good tone colour

I've totally fallen in love with the Mandocaster as an instrument. So this one is going back and I've ordered something better instead.

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Requires fingers of steel to play

squierjosh 17.12.2020

This looks and feels like a great instrument. However, the one thing it REALLY needs to be useful is not there - playability. The nut is cut so high that it's nearly impossible to push down strings on the first fret without pain. Even when you can play, the sound is not great. I didn't expect it to sound like an acoustic mandolin, but it's pretty bad. Really muddy, even with the tone cranked on the bridge pickup. Oh well, it looks good on the wall.

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Buy one, get it set-up

Recaster Guitar Workshop 06.08.2021

I feel really bad knocking a star off this product for quality but it did disappoint at first, even at this price.
The strings were so bad they some snapped when tuning it up for the first time. The saddles were all over the place and the frets were uneven and sharp.
But then as an independent guitar tech with my own workshop, I know that much more expensive instruments need setting up before they are at their best and the strings supplied usually need replacing right away.
If you go for one of these, you should expect to either spend some time setting it up yourself or take it to a shop to have a full set-up to get the most out of it. But then that's actually true of most most guitars ...

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Harley Benton MA-500 VS Bluegrass Series

Electric Mandolin

This is what customers who viewed this product bought

108 Customer ratings

81 Reviews

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Harley Benton MA-500 VS Bluegrass Series

Electric Mandolin

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