Harley Benton Custom Line King-CE NT

Kitara oli melko hyvissä säädöissä jo tehtaalta tullessa, ja se pääsikin pian tositoimiin. Fishmanin elektroniikka tuottaa hintaansa nähden tasapainoista soundia. Virittimet ovat myös laadukkaat. Akustisena kitara soi myös selvästi muhkeammin kuin omistamani Ibanezin ja d'Angelicon akustiset.

Pientä miinusta antaisin tallaluun käsittelystä: D- ja G-kielien väli ei ole aivan tarkkaan mitattu (hieman liian suuri väli muiden kielien väleihin suhteutettuna). Lisäksi jouduin hiomaan tallan alapuolta tasaisemmaksi, jotta alla oleva piezo poimisi paremmin ohuen E-kielen, joka soi hiljaisesti muihin nähden. Lopulta vaihdoin tallaluun kokonaan uuteen, ja kitara soi taas tasaisesti.

Pienillä päivityksillä (tallaluu, ja ehkäpä huokean oloiset muoviset tallan nupit) tästä saa erinomaisen elektroakustisen.

I play for 40 years, have 12 various guitars and play semi pro.
I have 4 acoustic guitars, from classic, dreadnought, grand auditorium and now also jumbo.

I really bought this guitar just for fun, because it's price is very nice and I read and saw some excelent reviews. I allways liked SJ-200 natural, but never found enough reason to actually buy it, as it is pretty expensive and my desire was never that strong.

With this one, one just can not go wrong. You get plenty of guitar for the money, excellent built, setup, solid electronics.

From the moment of unwrapping this guitar looks like it is triple or four times the price. It is very nice to play, excellent setup with Daddario EXP16 0,12 gauge.
neck is setup perfectly, action great and suitable for this kind of acoustic guitar.
And here we come to the next - what is this guitar meant for.
This is strumming type of guitar with rich and deep sound. Very neutral without any special character (martin, taylor, gibson sound...) resembling more to Ibanez or PRS neutral sound.
Since I have it only two days, this can be partly because acoustics get their character after some time of playing and when the wood properly matures.
This guitar has some raw spruce scent that makes me think, that wood could be a bit forced, so I will wait some time and be carefull, that I don't dry it out.
I expect, that harmonics will develop through time and use, right now it's more strings that give character to the sound.
So, when comparing this guitar to my grand auditorium Tanglewood TW170ASCE, Tanglewood sounds more mature, less deep bass but splendid mids and highs for fingerpicking, less for strumming.
Jumbo King CENT is quite opposite - mellow at fingerpicking, but great at open and full chords strumming.
But that is basically, what was expected from shape and wood and why I did buy this guitar.
I didn't expect much and I was pleasantly surprised and I still don't expect much, mut i see that this guitar has some potential to be more than just solid instrument.
But time will tell.
Anyway, great use of money and totaly worth it. Everybody that saw it, immediately guessed the price range of around 1000? or even more.

Edited after few months:
sound: developed more to typical Gibson SJ200 sound, sounds great when recorded.
as to mellow sound - it's not that, it is just that increased lower tones give different sound to high strings.
when played hard, this guitar roars!
action: set up high for strumming which it does excelently. If one wants to lower action, the whole mustache bridge has to be lowered. If you lower the action, some of the roar when strummed hard goes away.
Guitar tunes excelent and keeps tunning astonishingly.
Anyway, this guitar is not so much for gentle fingerpicking (jumbo's never meant to be anyway...) or it looses much of character.

Changed strings to D'addario EXP 12-56. It works great.