Harley Benton HBJ-24 Short Scale Tenor Banjo

I'm a regular customer with Thomann. If your looking at this banjo then you are most likely thinking of buying an Irish style banjo for traditional folk music. Curiously the banjo is supplied with the wrong strings for this venture. The supplied strings will tune correctly for a standard trad jazz banjo namely C,G,D&A. Its simple enough to just buy a set of Harley Benton electric guitar strings gauge 11-52 currently £1.29 (yes you read that price correct) and cannibalize the set for this banjo. This banjo will take either hoop or ball end strings.

Banjo, supplied with a quality Remo weatherking 11" head. Its good i won't be replacing the head but i did have to remove the resonator to tighten up the head (The tool is included with the banjo) takes all of 5-10 minutes. No fret buzz, the banjo pot is metal, i thought it was wood from the pictures but metal is better for volume.....to my surprise this is not a heavy banjo which is a plus for me. However i do regret not buying a banjo strap when i purchased this item. As others have stated the tuners do function but have some play so this is probably where HB has cut costs to keep the banjo at a nice budget price.

I've been noodlin' away at trad folk music today on this banjo and really enjoyed it, granted if you wanted to get in a session you will need to get the strings changed but for just playing around the house its grand.

I've owned 3 HB banjos and this is the one i've really wanted. It's just the right size for what i want to play namely traditional folk music.

This is my first tenor banjo and I was pleasantly surprised by it - the action is very low, it’s easy to play and sounds pleasant for the money. Unfortunately it doesn’t have much of the characteristic banjo “twang” — but you can’t really expect everything at this ridiculously affordable price point, can you?

It’s tuned to CGDA by default and plays quite well, but I mostly play Irish trad so retuned it to GDAE. Unfortunately as many others have remarked, the tuners don’t really hold tuning well at this much lower tension — and the banjo is also less in tune with itself (eg some o stave intervals are off while others are OK). I also had to tighten the banjo head to get the proper sound back (but that’s actually easy, just search on YouTube for a tutorial).

Overall, it’s was perfect for my first year of banjo playing - but now I’m ready for an upgrade.