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Harley Benton Custom Line CLA-16S

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Get 90 Days of Guitareo Free with Your Thomann Purchase!

Get 90 Days of Guitareo Free with Your Thomann Purchase!

Elevate your Guitar lesson experience with an exclusive offer from Thomann and Guitareo! When you purchase this guitar during the period from 03.12.2024 to 28.02.2025 you will receive a 90-Days Access for Guitareo free of charge on top. After your order has been shipped you will receive the licence key as well as the Download link send to you automatically by Email. The Guitareo access is non-recurring and ends automatically at the end of the period.

Included in your 90-days free:

  • Expert Lessons: Learn from the world’s greatest guitarists with step-by-step video instruction, workouts, challenges and courses.
  • Practice Tools: Access a variety of tools designed to help you practice smarter, not harder.
  • Thousands of Guitareless Tracks: Play along with your favorite songs, change the tempo, and loop the tricky parts.
  • Community Support: Join a passionate community of guitarists who share your love for music.

Acoustic Guitar

  • Auditorium 000-14 design
  • Dovetail construction
  • Solid sitka spruce top
  • Scalloped X-bracing
  • Sapele body
  • Okoume neck
  • Pau Ferro fretboard
  • Modified oval C neck profile
  • Mother-of-Pearl dot fretboard inlays
  • Black body binding
  • Scale: 643 mm
  • Nut width: 43 mm
  • 20 Frets
  • Bone nut
  • Compensated bone saddle
  • Pau Ferro bridge
  • Chrome-plated die-cast DLX machine heads
  • D'Addario XTAPB1253 Light strings, .012 - .053 (Article Nr 471307)
  • Colour: Natural matte
  • Matching case available under Article Nr 122211 (not included)
Available since November 2013
Item number 318343
Sales Unit 1 piece(s)
Model 000
Top Solid Spruce
Back and Sides Sapele, Mahogany
Cutaway No
Fretboard Pau Ferro
Nut width in mm 43,00 mm
Frets 20
Pickup No
Colour Natural
Incl. Case No
Incl. Gigbag No
B-Stock from £155 available
£166
All prices incl. VAT
In stock
In stock

This product is in stock and can be shipped immediately.

Standard Delivery Times
Delivery free of charge expected between Tuesday, 10.12. and Wednesday, 11.12.
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Mainstream appeal

Harley Benton acoustic steelstring guitar CLA-16S

Acoustic guitars don’t come much more mainstream than with an “auditorium” body shape and a solid spruce top – and that is what the Harley Benton Custom Line CLA-16S delivers. And why not? After all, millions of guitarists can’t be wrong. The CLA-16S gives price-conscious players one of the most popular types of steel-string guitar – a status that this design has enjoyed for 100 years and that this guitar’s rich, transparent sound and natural charm will ensure that it also retains for a long time to come. In visual terms, the CLA-16S is designed with understated elegance in mind and is characterised by its simple and stylish natural wood finish and tasteful inlays.

sound hole and pickguard on the solid spruce top of the Harley Benton Custom Line CLA-16S

Large body size, full sound

It is common knowledge by now that the secret of a guitar’s tone is the wood used, particularly where solid wood is concerned, and the guitar’s top is of central importance. The Harley Benton Custom Line CLA-16S features a top made from solid Sitka spruce, a wood also used to ensure a good sound in guitars at much higher price points. This is combined with X bracing, which ensures that the string tension is effectively supported and, like the body shape itself, has been in widespread use for over 100 years. The guitar’s back and sides are made from sapele mahogany, and the okoume neck features a pau ferro fingerboard. All of this together produces a full-sounding, characterful tone with an excellent bass response.

Sapele mahogany back on the Harley Benton CLA-16S acoustic guitar

Ideal for the transition to steel strings

The days when guitars were divided into “beginner” and “advanced” models are long gone – and that is a good thing. Its affordable price alone makes the Harley Benton Custom Line CLA-16S ideal for beginners, and the guitar also gives them the perfect instrument on which to vastly improve their playing. However, it will also be a blessing for more experienced players making the move from nylon to steel strings – and should your journey eventually lead to the stage, this guitar will prove itself a technically and sonically capable companion up to semi-professional level.

HB headstock

About Harley Benton

Since 1998, the Harley Benton brand has been catering for the needs of numerous guitarists and bassists. In addition to an extensive range of stringed instruments, Thomann's house brand also offers a wide choice of amplifiers, speakers, effect pedals, and other accessories. In total, the range includes over 1,500 products. Built by established names in the industry, all Harley Benton products combine quality and reliability at attractive and affordable prices. The continuous expansion of the range ensures that Harley Benton always provides new, exciting, and innovative products that keep players perfectly in tune with the musical world, day after day.

spruce top on the steel string  guitar Harley Benton Custom Line CLA-16S

Part of the group

The Harley Benton Custom Line CLA-16S is an ideal instrument for accompanying vocals of all kinds thanks to its full sound, which has plenty of clarity and excellent dynamics. Whether you are strumming chords with an extra-light pick to provide backing for a singer or fingerpicking in the finest Folk music tradition, this guitar can do it all and will remain audible even behind multiple voices – perfect for those performances around the campfire. What is more, the solid top and large body size deliver a thoroughly convincing sound in every application, with the added bonus that spruce tops are known to sound better and better as they age.

79 Customer ratings

4.7 / 5

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65 Reviews

ms
Great guitar
mike stormchaser 19.08.2020
I bought this during an isolation period away from home and away from my Martins. After receiving and playing this baby I will say this: while I love my Martins, those are 20 times more expensive than this HB and now I cannot say that they are 20 times better than the HB. Or 20 times longer sustain, or 20 times higher quality materials.

The law of diminishing returns applies clearly here, showing that value is subjective. The fact that I am comparing a Harley Benton against a Martin should say a lot. The CLA-16S is a great guitar that gives you A LOT for a modest price. It looks great, it sounds great, it's built well and more than affordable and suitable for any guitarist, from beginner to advanced.

I think that for this price, you get a lot of features found on higher grade guitar: solid spruce top, scalloped X bracing, bone nut and saddle, a good fretboard and bridge. I know Pau Ferro isn't technically in the rosewood family and it gets a bad rap, but it is still a good tonewood for a fretboard and more affordable. Let's not forget that even Fender and Gibson Custom Shops use it on expensive models.

All in all, I was amazed at the build quality and playability and I bonded with it instantly, becoming one of my favorites.

Kudos to Harley Benton and cheers to Thomann for a great guitar!
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T
Absolutely love this guitar
Tips 14.07.2019
The last couple of years I tried a lot of different acoustic guitars, but I never really fell in love with one. There Always seemed to be something missing on all of them (epihone/Sigma).
Kind of lost hope in finding a good fun acoustic guitar. After hearing a lot of good talk about the Harley Bentons I thought, what the hell, let's try one. And A
am I glad I did.
The guitar sounds really good. Very powerfull on single notes with the convenience of a smaller body than a dreadnought.
Was it perfect on arrival? No, Action was way too high at the 12th fret. But because it was so cheap, I decided to lower the action on an acoustic guitar for the first time by myself. And now it plays like a dream.
Is it better than a Martin: Probably not, but I played acoustics that were 3 times as expensive as this one that didn't sound half as good.
It is a no brainer. Just go for it.
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p
An amazing guitar for an amazing price
panos907 18.11.2019
I have been playing guitar (acoustic , electric and classical) for about 3 years in total. I bought this guitar to try acoustic fingerstyle in the style of Tommy Emmanuel.

Arrival:
The guitar arrived perfectly protected in it's box, with no damage whatsoever.

Setup:
It was flawlessly setup out of the box, with low string action, intonated properly, no buzzing frets or fret sprout, and no truss rod adjustment needed. The nut was cut really well with no buzzing or bad height.

Playability:
It plays really easily all throughout the neck, has a great neck profile and radius (reminds me of a Fender Stratocaster neck). All the chords and picking i did on it rang out greatly and flawlessly, and barre chords have never been easier to play all over the neck.

Sound:
It sounds much better than the sound clips on the site , to be honest. A balanced sound (as you would expect from an OOO) with all frequencies present as should , it is great for fingerpicking, but still not bad at all for strumming. Also, every hammer on/pull off and similar effects ring out with great resonance. At first, i thought i was hearing a much more expensive guitar, reminded me of some much more expensive ones like the Martin 15M.

Cons:
It arrived with some small cosmetic flaws. Some tiny bits of glue left over where the neck meets the body (i already took them off with a toothpick) and a small ding in the back , in that same spot.

Overall, a great guitar. Not just "for the money" . A great guitar all around. Highly recommended to beginners and advanced alike.
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M
Quite ok , with flaws
Motherspot 06.02.2020
When the guitar arrived it was well packed, looked very nice, nice size...playability was good and the sound was quite nice too. After 3 days i wanted 0.11 strings on it...so i started to change them...that's when the problems occured...when putting on the other, thinner strings some bridge pins went way too deep into the bridge wood..so extremely hard to get the strings out....( when i swapped them back to the stock strings..(for sending the guitar back) .i could only get 'm out by going into the body with my hand and push them out from under...) The 0.11 strings did'nt work...there was a rattle/buzz on the d-string...and they sounded thin....maybe i could have changed the trustrod, or have it checked bij a luthier, but i did not want to go that far. A new guitar should be giving a good feeling .... if possible...the fretbuzz & the bridge pins made me send it back....Thomann is very efficient and for the credit from this one i ordered another HB guitar...this time a little bit bigger (dreadnought) wich will hopefully as well give a fuller sound.....this 000 was nice sounding but not very special in my ears...Maybe i just had bad luck with this specific guitar...an ugly ducklin...but anyway...Thumbs up for Thomann!
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