Harley Benton Nashville Nylon NT

I have been playing guitar now for about 46 yrs. I had a career with my local government education department for a number of years teaching music and music technology to young people from about 12 to 25 yrs of age. Now, because of a serious spinal injury (please, no tap jokes),write and record mainly from home with a view to some wheelchair bound future gigs showcasing my own compositions.
Like a number of guitarist, I have not owned a nylon strung guitar for a great number of years and decided that it was about time that I did. My first ever guitar was a nylon classical and I wanted this sound instead of playing classical and barque pieces on steel strings. Browsing through the Thomann guitars I found this one coming in at just under £200 and gave it a go, I have not been disappointed.
The guitar arrived three days from dispatch to the UK, in Thomann's usual bomb proof, padded and double boxed packaging. The guitar out of the box was in good condition and almost in tune, just a very dry fret board that after a coat or two of lemon oil, was fine.
The guitar has a heavy mahogany body with a well matched solid spruce top, a very well set mahogany neck and Roseacer fret board. The two "sound holes" nice as they are, are for no more than show, being only a few mm deep and offering no real acoustic value at all. This guitar is really a solid bodied instrument, though in the silence of the night, it can be heard slightly unplugged and the aesthetics of the pseudo sound holes give a very classy vibe. It has a nicely cut nut and, for a classical type guitar, a very low action. The bridge is walnut and with a nice cream binding on the body and neck, all this adds up to a great looking, fantastically playable instrument.
Coming to the sound. I have tried this guitar through a number of amps, acoustic simulation F/X and straight in to my desk, so, this is a fairly well rounded review of the sound. I do not know the make or type of Piezo pickup but it works well. The volume sweep is good and smooth with no hint of distortion when flat out and produces a superb representation of all the main aspects of a good professional nylon classical guitar. The bass and treble do what they say and I found the bass at 40 to 50% and the treble at about 50 to 60% seems to work well for me.The sound then over all with just a hint of reverb, is super clean, lush, very well rounded and of a quality that sounds a great, great deal more than just under £200, by and large with this sound, build and ease of playing you feel like you have a five to £600 guitar, in your hands. A bit more reverb and volume and I had Bach swirling and dancing in my ears with a truly amazing tonality and timbre, fantastic. It is an instrument I would be happy and confident to use live in any situation and look forward to the day when I can again.
Once again, I have an absolutely unbeatable guitar for £196 and in terms of price, quality and service all I can say is, many thanks Thomann, you have done it yet again.

The Man-in-the-Moon signed the Quality Control release note on my Harley Benton Nashville, nylon string. For when it arrived it has only 5 strings….working. I checked my order. Yes it said 6-strings. I checked my other eight guitars. Yes 6-strings. So what is going on?

The D string didn’t match the set on the guitar and emitted no sound….AT ALL. Goodness. Was this manufactured prior to 1700 when guitars were 5-string instruments?

What on earth is going on? Ahhhh. Got it. Change the rogue string for a shiny new one that matched the set. Tuned up. BUT still no sound. Hhhhmmm.

As Germany isn’t next door, I couldn’t walk to Thomann and knock. I removed the saddle. Sure enough the piezo pickup was intact. What next to check?

Oooops. I dropped the shiny, white saddle piece I’d removed. But it didn’t fall onto the floor. It floated up to the ceiling and remained there. I stood on a chair to retrieve it. Wow it was featherlight. On its underside I noticed that it had ejection holes from the plastic moulding process. I inserted a proper bone saddle into the bridge, tuned-up and whey-hey – Music arrived at the D-string. So the holes on the underside of the supplied saddle were preventing the piezo (pressure) effect from working.

No problem.

Except my bone saddle was straight edge at the top and the removed one had a radius. Into my workshop. Rough emery paper needed. When the radius matched. Back to fit. But the height of the 6th string at the 12th fret was enormous. Back to the emery to grind its bottom. Careful check, but still too high. Sanded some more and happy.

Now for the grey and dusty-looking fretboard. Got the Linseed oil out and with the drenched cloth, gave it a scrub. Goodness. I now have a wonderful-looking dark brown fretboard. That worked.

Now to tune the guitar. But I couldn’t as the tuners on the unseen-side, wouldn’t twist. They were stuck. So I turned the guitar to left-handed and gave the tuners an angry stare. Oh dear. What to do? Adjusting the torque on the screws didn’t work. Greasing the barrels didn’t work. Then I spotted that the nylon barrels were badly fitted into the wood. Oiled both sides and Hey presto, the winders began to turn.

Someone rang my house bell. Went to investigate. Good news. My Butler, who I hired earlier, had arrived. So I sat on my stool with my left thigh raised in the Classical position, waiting. He then lifted the guitar onto my thigh. Now I was anchored for the next hour and a quarter. So dismissed the Butler and asked him to return after practise to release me.

You’ve guessed correctly. This guitar is HEAVY.

I heard on the news that someone has stolen a section of hi-speed rail track. I have found it. It is fitted into my HB Nashville to separate each fret. Then hammered into a distinct radius. These enormous frets mean that your left-hand fingers disappear each time you finger a note. As it takes time to extricate your finger from the deep and move it to the next note, I can only play Adagio. Tunes like Brahms lullaby and Silent Night - over and over.

Talking of frets, there are 16 before the neck meets the body. You can overcome this enormous distance by re-arranging all your music from the first position to the 5th position. That was still a stretch. Chose to move to the more playable 10th position. After all there are 21 frets to explore.

The plastic (again) nut is 48mm width. You therefore expect that the width across all 6 strings will be 40mm, giving an 8mm gap. But no. It measures 39mm. What!

Playing fingerstyle, I found my right-hand seemed content. Big surprise on measuring the string spacing at the bridge. It is the Classical 60mm. A 48mm nut normally ends up 57.5mm at the bridge. The extra width helps playability.

The guitar is slim at 45mm and is smaller by 50mm across the bouts. It sits well on your thigh.

The White House requested an audience to hear its timbre. The Royal Albert Hall too. I tossed and turned wondering what tune would suit. Then I woke up.

The Good ~ 1. A nice price point compared to other electric nylon options. 2. The finish is very nice. I did not experience any problems with the faux f-holes that other reviewers have noted.
The Bad ~ 1. Saddle is a bit tall, making the action a bit high. Seems like it can be taken down without buzzing. 2. The low-E and high-E strings were wound on the tuners backwards and both strings rubbed and caught against the outer walls of the tuner slots.
The Ugly ~ 1. The treble control fell off. The knob came off with the pot stem still connected, leaving a hole that looks like a mini-jack where the control used to be. This is unacceptable. 2. The nut is made out of soft plastic and the slots were not wide enough for the strings. This resulted in the strings digging into their slots and seizing to the point were turning the tuner would stretch the string between the tuner and the nut.
(Too bad I cannot post pictures here)
I emailed Thomann but have not heard back. I am in the US so I think returning this guitar will be a small nightmare.

the guitar is remarkable value for money..superb body, super-smooth neck, lovely fret and fingerboard.....but the routing in the bridge for the piezo was poor and resulted in treble and bass E strings delivering volume levels much higher than other strings. This is typical of low cost piezo pick ups. I stripped the whole bridge assembly to find that the socket for the piezo was not flat but slightly concave. Buy this guitar on my advice but be prepared for some careful re-fitting of the piezo. Internal wiring was good, nothing wrong with the piezo itself, control pots work really well....wiring looms tidy....I have looked for a way of amplifying a classical guitar at low cost, that is without expensive microphones and acoustic guitar amplifiers.
A few more minutes and a little more care on the production line would deliver a perfectly flat platform for the piezo....and the pressure sensitive piezo relies on this.
I have worked on this and after 3 or 4 attempts now have a good string volume balance...good enough to achieve perfectly balanced string volume with the help of a £20 Behringer compressor pedal.
The resultant guitar is a joy to play and the sound range, thanks to separate bass and treble pots is excellent.
Add “superlube’ to the tuners straight away and work this in. I really like the 45mm string spacing at the nut for finger style playing and the general action is first class.
TO THOMMAN’S CREDIT I HAVENT HAD TO REPLACED ANYTHING!!!...just refined the original set up..and I won’t part with the guitar...I play it every day.