Harley Benton Custom Line CLD-16S

This guitar is simply unbelievable value, it sounds amazing and the top hasn't had time to open up yet, so I'm guessing with regular playing it will get even better.

First off, 4 stars for quality, nothing really bad, a tiny scrape near the sound hole, just under the fret board, you only would notice if really looking, a small concave on the top, again very hard to see, and last of all, I pulled the pick guard off and I'm waiting for one I ordered, it was bent/misshapen at the thinnest point, could have left it, but it was more annoying like that, as it could be seen more easily.

Having said all that, this is easily a 5* dread, it sounds sparkly and warm at the same time, tuners, nut and saddle all good, frets well finished, no buzzes or dead notes, even with the action sitting just over 2 mm, all I had to do was adjust the truss rod, Thomann obviously ship them like this to take the strain off the neck while in transit, which is a good idea, the guitar is in tune with itself, and when you adjust the relief you can more or less get it into standard tuning without touching the tuning pegs!

Honestly, I have never played anything that gets close to this sound and feel that is deemed a budget guitar, even at 4 or 5 times the price, first class, the minor blemishes, are just that, minor, on an otherwise excellent guitar.

I am very impressed with the sound quality of this guitar. Given its price range, you don't normally expect to get great sound, but this guitar pleasantly surprised me.

The workmanship is very good. I can't fault the construction of the guitar. It is very well finished.

The only let down, is the cutting of the string slots in the nut. That has not been done well at all, and because of that issue it makes tuning stability an issue.

The intonation is really good. The fretboard was dry, as you could expect in a guitar of this price. A little lemon oil has sorted that out.

The frets are well finished. There is no fretting out anywhere. Having said that, the action could probably come down a little bit - for my taste. The edges of the frets are dressed well. It is nice to play, and has a shallow 'C' neck, which would suit most players.

I would recommend this guitar to anyone, but don't expect perfection. Your mileage may vary, but I would consider that it will need some tweaking to be a very good guitar.

It does sound nice !!!