Harley Benton ST-Acoustic Black

Good affordable acu-electric, needs some TLC on arrival. Fretspreds is manageable to fix, because wood shrinks when not dried correctly before assembly (take note Harley Benton). But, in hindsight Europe is quite dry in the fall/winter, so I guess every brand has their share of shrinkage. But, if qc correct, it could be fixed, but get it, it is affordable and by doing it yourself, you learn something on the way, so both educational AND affordable. Can recommend if you are on a budget, because efter the TLC, it seems to be as good as any other brand.

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.

I bought this thinking it would do nicely as a "general purpose dogsbody" guitar which I wouldn't need to worry about getting a knock or two - unlike my more expensive guitars. It's better than I expected.
The good stuff:
Very prettily finished, there are a couple of minor imperfections at the binding edges, but only noticeable if you look very hard and critically at it. Lovely neck and fingerboard, nice frets, no rough edges there. Action was fine for me, straight out the box. Unplugged, it is louder than I expected, compares well with my Ibanez Talman. Obviously not so much projection as a dreadnought - you couldn't expect it - but very useable all the same. Amped up, good tone (typical piezo undersaddle sound) and the 4 band EQ works well.
The bad stuff:
Nothing REALLY bad, but the tuning machines feel clunky, heavy and not nice to use. It seems to be stable enough once it is tuned but I'd consider fitting a better set at some point, Which, for a set of Klusons, would add about €40 on top. Still a lot cheaper than buying the Fender product, which is also not without its critics.
Overall, highly recommended as a good all-round top value guitar.

Update 3/10/2020: The clunky tuners were really getting to me, so I obtained a set of gold-plate finish ones (from Amazon - about €12, free postage) as well as some goldie roller string trees. Now I cannot fault the instrument, I took a bit of a gamble buying cheap tuners, yet even at that price they were much better than the factory ones. HB please note!

Update 18/10/2021: I'd like to add that I've now had this guitar just over a year and it has become my most used instrument of the seven guitars I currently have available. I don't think anyone could regret buying one and at this price they are amazing value as well.