Harley Benton Nashville-Steel

Secondo il mio modesto parere questa chitarra dovrebbe montare corde da acustica (anche 012) per diventare meglio intonata e per poter essere meglio sfruttabile. Certo...non potrete fare i bending che volete ma con questa chitarra non potete suonare certo alcuni stili troppo "spinti". Per me è un'ottima soluzione per avere una chitarra con poca cassa che in certi contesti non crea problemi di feedback e miscelando le due amplificazioni disponibili si ottengono belle sonorità. Il mio esemplare è finito bene e devo dire che esteticamente la chitarra si presenta con un'immagine non "economica". Certo...non parliamo di una T5 della Taylor ma non fa rimpiangere nulla per esempio di una Crafter molto simile che però costa il triplo... Molto bella la colorazione.

E' una chitarra che sorprende. Ha una estetica semplice ma elegante allo stesso tempo. La parte elettronica ibrida, accoppia al trasduttore piezoelettrico sotto sella un pickup single coil al manico, usabili sia separatamente che miscelati insieme. Pertanto la gamma timbrica spazia da un suono tipicamente acustico a rotondità jazz oppure rock, agendo sui controlli dell'amplificatore (gain - volume). Ovviamente non si può considerare sostitutiva dei modelli LP con gli humbuckers ma sicuramente offre un'esperienza gradevolissima anche in forza del fatto che ha un peso contenuto e si può usare nelle circostanze più svariate.
Solo una piccola critica riferita al prezzo che, a mio avviso, è un po' esagerato rispetto al valore effettivo dello strumento.

This guitar is a good little player, but certainly has a few shortcomings with components and build quality.

The battery and output jack plate don't quite fit right. It's simply a matter of the plate being a different radius than the body so it sticks out on the sides. Functionally it's fine, aesthetically it's not good.

The bridge suffers the same problem. They've glued a flat bridge to an arched body. The corners of the bridge are just barely hanging on and will probably fail overtime.

There are a few areas where the binding has some flaws or could simply use more clean up. In the price range you can forgive some finish work, but there are places where the binding simply isn't set quite right or has a noticeable gap.

On the electronics side there's not a lot wrong functionally, but they're just not very good. The piezo pickup is pretty harsh sounding to my ear. This harshness takes over when the blend function is used and is easy to hear when blending even the slightest amount of signal from the piezo. The onboard tuner is a really nice feature, but it jumps around a lot. It'll get the job done, but sometimes takes just a little longer than it should.

It's not all bad things though, like I said it's been a good player for me.

Construction wise the neck is pretty good. It's comfortable, the frets aren't sharp, and it's tuners are smooth. The body looks great overall. With the exception of the few issues mentioned above it's put together pretty well.

For sounds it's pretty easy to get some great warm jazzy sounds from the lipstick pickup. It wakes up with an overdrive and gives you terrific blues tones. If you really go high gain you can get great rock sounds too. This is where it really shines. It won't give you a bunch of sparkle or twang. There are other guitars for that anyway. When I pick this up I always end up playing sounds that make me think dirt, wet, warm... and that's just fine.

I've enjoyed playing this guitar and will continue to do so.

About me: I've been playing guitar for almost 20 years. I am no pro, I play for myself in the comfort of my own home. I play this guitar through a small tube amp with a variety of pedals. I play with a pick and finger style depending on my mood.