Harley Benton MA-500 VS Bluegrass Series

(+) It's a solid build - like a Tele-guitar but...
(-) for that, heavy, bulky-feeling V-neck, feels nothing like a mando. (matter of taste)
(-) The frets are uneven and have sharp edges
(+) The hardware is solid, too, but...
(-) the 4-barrel/nut Tele-like bridge does not work well on a mandolin. The string guides of each barrel, as well as the intonation screws are off-center, which might not be a problem on a Tele, but the string tension on a mandolin is much greater, not just downward tension. The result is the barrels leaning completely on one side, leaving the other side hanging in the air. this happens mostly when trying to lower the action.
(-) Each pair of strings is fed through the same hole on the back of the bridge which seems sort of makeshift, not really well thought out. And this probably also adds to the leaning barrel problem.
(+) The electronics work and sound fine. With both pickups on, you get a nice funky guitar sound (if that's what you're going for). Actually, you get a pretty nice range of sound combinations for such a small package. That's definitely a big plus which makes it a lot of fun.
(+) It's great for practicing in the middle of the night, unplugged or of course with headphones plugged into your favorite amp or amp-sim.

Finally it's a really fun instrument with lots of sounds to experiment with. But don't expect a ready-to-play, low-action, mando-shredder. So if your willing to put in some work (or you have no feeling in your fingertips), it's definitely a good bang for the buck. But I just wanted a practice mando that doesn't upset my neighbors. I think I'd rather just stuff a normal mandolin with foam.

I'm pretty comfortable working on guitars, in fact I enjoy it, so I bought this as a little project.

I'd only messed around with Mandolins and decided that it was about time to get one in the house and as I was going through a Tele phase this seemed like a perfect fit!

It does not sound like a mandolin, but it gets that kind of flavour if you're looking to add textures/layers to a recording.

The amplified sound is a little dull, although this may be down to the original strings, and there is not a huge difference between pick up locations. However, as above, I have found uses for it when needing to add extra layers or textures to recordings.

It was playable out of the box but needed a fair amount of work to make it playable to my liking - so work was done to the neck, frets, nut and 'saddles'. The actual finish of the instrument is great and as a little practice instrument it has been brilliant.

If you are looking for a 'serious' mandolin, look elsewhere. If you're looking for a robust project instrument and want something different this is for you!

This was purchased as an alternative to an acoustic mandolin for some smaller shows where it wasn't practical to get a condenser mic in front of the mandolin.

In terms of quality it is hard to fault, decent wood and hardware and certainly feels like a study instrument that would be capable of handling the rigours of the road.

Playability was good although it certainly has more of an electric guitar feel rather than a traditional mandolin but I think it's fair to say that this is to be expected!

One thing to note is that, like an electric guitar, this thing really needs to be fed into an amplifier of some sort rather than via a DI straight into the desk - the guitar style pickups rely on the amp to add 'warmth' etc to the signal - without going through an amp you are left with a rather thin sound but again this isn't a problem with the product, just something to be aware of.

Eventually I ended up buying a dedicated pickup for my acoustic mandolin as it yielded a more traditional sound for the material I was playing but if I was after a less traditional tone I wouldn't be worried about playing this into a decent guitar amp.