Harley Benton TrueTone SH-30 Pro Active

Bought this pickup to be a spare for my Takamine built-in piezo pickup - in case something goes wrong with it during a gig i can just throw this in the soundhole and carry on playing.

What surprised me was that this is really good sounding pickup and doesnt require EQ:ing, the sound is quite ready to go as it is. You can balance the sound using blend knob to give a bit "body" to the sound. But no annoying top end as its usually the problem with these things.

I have also played 2 small gigs using this pickup in my Yamaha FS720S acoustic and connected to a portable battery powered active speaker that dont even have any EQ controls. Sound was not maybe perfect, but perfectly usable in that condition.

I would recommend this to every acoustic guitar player who gigs a lot for a backup. It's cheap and does the job better than expected.

Bought this to get some percussive sounds out of my Harley Benton baritone, whose own pickup is all good but doesn't do that. Have to say it works beautifully for that purpose – using just the microphone part, the guitar sound itself is very realistic too. I know that links are not allowed, but I dare it anyway: if you want to hear how it sounds, try checking Episode 100 on the YT channel Unlikely Arrangements... anyway, this pickup is highly recommended for its price point!

The dual coil / mic pickup is great to have. I haven't found anything for that price that have these options and it's one I really wanted so percussive sounds would be picked up.

Sounds good with my dreadnought plugged into an amp.

In my case the G string sounded way louder than the others. I did find a way to attenuate the effect by taping two small coins on the pick up just under the G string. After that it just seems perfect for me.

Single coil gives it that particular sensitivity / dynamics that humbuckers don't have, it's something to know (I really like that, I've never had a single coil guitar before and I think they sound really cool).

The wire is not super thick but still decent. Since it's short and just meant to be attached to the guitar and not directly on an amp, I think it's better than other options where you got a long thin cable, which seem riskier.

Obviously if you have a way bigger budget for a pickup there probably is way better out there, but in this price range this one seems really good. Let's see how it holds up in the long run.