“A classical guitar for the modern era”: Harley Benton unveils the Custom Line Nashville Nylon BK, and its latest nylon-string electro-acoustic hybrid is a super-affordable thinline that's designed to welcome electric players

Harley Benton has launched the Custom Line Nashville Nylon BK, a singlecut thinline nylon-string guitar with onboard electronics – the kind that got ridiculously famous just about 2022 when Polyphia dropped Playing God – and while the budget gear brand has done this kind of thing before it has never been so cheap.

This really is an affordable acoustic electric guitar. At £251/$270, it’s almost entry-level, and yet it’s got a similarly radical hybrid build as its sibling, the Nashville Nylon Plus Black, which was launched in November 2024, complete with “Flower & Vine” inlay for that bougie Tim Henson vibe.

Aesthetically, this a more stripped-down proposition – pearl dot inlays here, folks – and yet, we have those decorative f-holes, cream binding on the body, aforementioned f-holes and on the fingerboard.

At this price, this Harley Benton guitar is going to tempt the player who’s curious about how the inimitable attack and decay of a nylon guitar string can be deployed in other musical contexts, from Latin jazz and fusion to, well, instrumental progressive metal.

That's the thing with a guitar like this, because here’s the thing; the slimmed-down thinline build is not just something that makes the guitar more accommodating to electric players trying something new, the shallower body helps keep a lid on feedback, which can happen if you’re playing amplified in an ensemble that is performing at high volume, with a lot of gain onstage.

The Nashville Nylon BK will be similarly welcoming to players whose background lies in classical guitar and flamenco styles, with a 48mm nut width and 15.7” fingerboard radius offering a bit more space for the fretting hand to manoeuvre – you have 21 frets to work with.

The scale length, meanwhile, is a Fender-esque 25.5”. This might be a bold design but there are established touchstones that should make it easy to adjust to.

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The thinline body has a mahogany back and sides and a solid spruce top. The neck, too, is mahogany, while the bridge is walnut. The slotted headstock has deluxe gold tuners with white buttons.

As with the Nashville Nylon Plus Black, the controls for the onboard piezo-based electronics are mounted on the top of the instrument – just like an electric guitar – and you have volume, bass and treble knobs to dial in a sound.

The Custom Line Nashville Nylon BK is available now via Thomann and the Official Harley Benton Reverb Shop if you are in the US. You can see more of it over at Harley Benton, and compare and contrast with the Nashville Nylon Plus Black here.