Harley Benton mandolins

MartinBush

Hi all

I am feeling the need to have a go at playing mandolin and spotted that Harley Benton do some rather cheap instruments - one with a pickup and one without.

I know they won't be world beaters, but as I only want to have a go and see if it's for me, I wondered if they are likely to be at least OK. Does anyone have experience with the HB models?

drofluf

I had one of their electric models and to be honest it was a bit of dog; the neck (Tele style) was "Shimmed" with some washers and slivers of wood. I also had an octave mandolin of theirs that was a little better but moved that on fairly quickly.

As a rule of thumb you need to spend twice as much on agentry level mandolin as you would on a guitar to get something of a similar quality. You'd probably need to factor in a setup, higher tension strings and a short scale don't lend themselves to high action.

If I were going back to mandolin I'd look at the Ashbury/Hobgoblin range

MartinBush

Thanks @drofluf ;The one I am looking at is a regular style instrument rather than the tele style one.

What's the deal with buying online if an instrument is rubbish as described above? Would a retailer, in this case Thomann, take it back if you find it's no good (regardless of price)?

I ask as I suspect that any shop with instruments in I could try in person is likely to be out of my price range.  

sir_strumalot

Thomann allow returns for 30 days - it's all there on their website. It's worth reading the reviews, they don't seem to delete bad reviews. I bought the same electric as drofluf, and it was pretty bad, but to be fair there were negative reviews which I'd read before I bought it.

MartinBush

Cheers all. I have been lucky enough to find an instrument locally so won't need to worry about returns on this occasion. But I always have my eye on other Thomann items so good to know how their returns work.