Donner HLX-500 Headless Electric Guitar (NHL-500)

A pickup screw came off during shipment. Luckily I found it in the box and reattached it. I like the shape and feel of the guitar. I think it is a great value for the cost.

Love mine

An excellent headless guitar - at a very reasonable price! I'll use it as a travel guitar, but it fits in just as well in my studio at home. Plays and sounds great!

Great guitar, built well, preforms and sounds great. A great buy

Guitar arrived defective. Donner customer service is email only and responses are terrible. They state a 30 day return policy, but after numerous attempts to resolve the issue, replies are completely ghosted. Buyer beware.

aaas

I ordered it, It arrived defective with a dead bridge pickup. Ive sent three emails requesting a replacement and still no reply. Ive had this guitar for 1 week. Terrible customer service.

This is a great guitar with affordable price! Highly recommend! See this video for your reference. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20ttd6UPJCU

Never will I have anything to do with your company and will discourage every musician friend I have ( and that's many ), from buying your products.

I was torn between the Donner headless and the Eart. I chose the Donner because of the body shape (beautiful). It played great out of the box. I decided to to do a deep dive and discovered the bridge was not fully seated to the body. Shocked this could leave the factory like this. I fixed the bridge, found frets 5 and 13 needed hammered in (with a brass hammer) to stop the rocking. I polished the frets, adjusted the truss rod and this thing is a player! My 5 way switch knob was pressed on so low that it operated as a 3 way. It actually fooled me and I thought the bridge pickup's output was garbage. I swapped it with a Seymour Dimebag Darrell that I had and it was garbage until I figured out the switch knob was the issue. Now that I have it dialed in...It's my new favorite guitar. No regrets. If you can't do your own guitar tech work...You might look elsewhere. That's my honest review.

For the money, Donner makes an incredible guitar. It's lightweight, extremely comfortable, and sounds fantastic.

My first headless and the Donner is a winner. Very light weight and comfortable to play on either leg when sitting thanks to the output jack location. Pickups are very articulate and responsive. The neck shape is wonderful and string action is low out of the box. I did have to tap down a couple slightly high frets which worked out fine. No fret sprouts and neck is straight and true. Tuning stability is great so far and intonation was adjusted quickly as well. The case is a fantastic addition with good padding, storage and carrying options. Highly recommended.

It arrived in perfect shape. I like that the box has a built in handle. Looks beautiful. Had fret buzz on the lower E string. Raised the action slightly. Now it's perfect. It plays like butter. I love it. And the gig bag is so well built. Even has a nice strap.I thought Donner wasn't that great. But after seeing Richard James Aka. The Bald Shredder. And what he had to say. I took a chance. I was not disappointed. Will be taking it with me when I go to the Philippines. Thank you Donner.

A friend of mine got the NHL 500 (now the HLX 500) at NAMM and was really impressed by the design and playability. I had been looking for a travel guitar and this has turned out to be perfect for my needs. The guitar is beautiful. Mine has the okoume body and roasted maple neck and is aesthetically pleasing. The guitar is straightforward with two single coils and a humbucker with a 5 way switch. It holds tune really well and is easy to set. One of the best features and the one that sold me is the progressive neck. The gig bag is equally well designed with smart details throughout. Compact and lightweight and plays like a full sized guitar. I’m really impressed by this instrument.

I am thoroughly impressed with my Donner headless guitar. The build quality is exceptional—everything feels solid, from the smooth fretwork to the stable hardware. The switch is solid. It stays in tune remarkably well, and the ergonomic design makes it incredibly comfortable on the couch while watching TV. The included case is a great extra; it's sturdy, well-padded, and feels premium, providing perfect protection. For the price, this is an outstanding package. Wonderful quality all around! Glad I made the purchase!

Really grateful to @procraftindia for the endorsement <3

Probably the best Donner guitar yet. Fantastic neck and fretwork.

Lightest, best electric guitar I could find for the money

Years ago, I owned a Steinberger guitar. I gave it away and have always been on the quest for another headless guitar. I ran across these after the new year this year (2026). I have owned several guitars (34), and still own 12. Most are over $1200 or more, and i almost always play before I buy. I watched every video on YouTube, some 2-3 times, and felt i was informed enough to make the choice. Besides, for the price, didn’t feel i could go too wrong. I have had mine for about a month, and honestly it has become my go to guitar. I play at church every week, and it really sounds pretty great just straight through my amp. When i need it to have a little crunch, the pickups aren’t overpowering, and sound great. I have had no problems with the guitar, and have played it for 2-3 hours almost every day since i got it. The frets needed polished, and I have changed strings twice, and because it now has boomer 9’s on it, i have lowered the strings, adjusted the neck, and set the intonation. Personally, i will probably go back to 10’s because, it just sounds better with 10’s. I am glad to say that i really love this guitar, and comparatively, i would say it is in the category with my former steinberger. Maybe, even better. —-Way cheaper!

Thanks for @Jun Mak

Thanks for @Satoshi Oka

Tuning gets loose, got some buzz, no probs I can tune and the buzz doesn't really matter. It's almost written itself an album and on the last track it almost sounds acoustic. I did my previous album with a Strat which was different for me but I liked it and this had very similar qualities. All my others are buckers hence the revelation. I agree with other entitled bastards though, let's have a SHH!

This is an exceptional guitar at this price point. The zero fret is an unusual choice, but the jury is still out on that one. The tuning stability is almost unreal; out of this world stable once you've gotten it intonated properly; it did come very close to perfect, just cents off on a couple of strings I think. I had to give the neck some relief, but that was quick and painless. The overall setup is very impressive for a budget instrument. The fretwork is head and shoulders above anything else for the money, far better than a Sterling Kaizen 7 at well over 2x the price which I've also acquired recently and the comparison is night and day. This Donner punches well above its weight in all departments except one: the pickups. Maybe I just need to adjust literally everything about my rig to get the results I want, but these pickups are quite strange. It's like their weak, yet overly compressed. Maybe it's really strong magnets with very little copper windings? I don't know, but they have good clarity once their dialed in nicely, even if they are a bit thin. It's likely I will replace the pickups, but thats a minor one-star gripe in my opinion. Get this guitar while it's cheap. It's worth every cent.

I have been playing professionally for 40 years and am pleasantly pleased with this guitar. Just a small tweak on setup for personal preferences and it plays as well as anything I own. For the price it would be difficult to beat.

Exceptional value for money. Perfectly packed and a really good gig bag. The guitar was in perfect condition. No fret sprouting. The fret work was spot on and no high spots. I had not issues getting it set up to my liking. The action is super low with virtually no buzzing. I attached a picture of the Donner 500 next to my Strandberg. The pickups are what you would expect from a guitar in this price range. I’m upgrading mine to Seymour Duncan’s - the guitar is worth it. No regrets at all. The guitar is a a serious contender to my Strandberg at less than a quarter of the price.

Tried the NHL-500 at NAMM and honestly couldn’t put it down. The headless design makes it feel super compact but still very solid. The tuning stability surprised me the most — it stayed perfectly in tune even after some aggressive playing.

I travel a lot for gigs, and the portability of the NHL-500 is a game changer. It fits easily into overhead compartments and the gig bag is extremely well designed. Lightweight, protective, and very practical.

The 24 frets really open up the neck. I play a lot of lead and progressive styles, and having that extra range makes a big difference. It feels like this guitar is built for players who want room to grow.

What I like most is how versatile this guitar feels. It’s clearly designed for studio, stage, and casual playing. It doesn’t feel like a niche travel guitar — it feels like a full professional instrument.

Build quality felt extremely solid when I checked it out at the booth. The fretwork was smooth, and the nickel-silver frets felt durable and comfortable for fast playing.

This is an awesome guitar for the price! Really enjoy playing it.

I have played other headless guitars but did not really want to invest the amount of money they wanted. I stumbled upon this guitar thru Facebook, checked out the specs and reviews and took the plunge because it was so affordable. I am totally blown away by this guitar. The packaging was superb! The guitar needed to be tuned obviously, but it's setup was great. I did not have to adjust the truss rod, or the string height or intonation. It will become a terrific addition to my other 28 guitars!

Punches well above it's weight class in terms of quality and playability. It's also extremely convenient for travel and just sitting on the couch practicing.

I would give it a 5/5 if it had HH and 25" scale. Most folks don't like HSS and 25.5" scale. This is an amazing guitar but those two aspects only serve a small niche group.

Smooth & practical

I have built several headless guitar kits and also have several headless travel guitars but I was really impressed with the NHL-500 with the sound and how light it is . I have actually made an unboxing video of this guitar which I will be posting on Youtube later this month.

Great guitar at a great price - can’t wait for the two humbucker version!!

Thanks for @Chris Cook!

Like many, I wanted to try a headless buy didnt want to pay for the name brand. I've owned some other donner instruments that I felt were better than their price indicated (ukulele, banjolele, piano) so I decided to pull the trigger. Took about 3 days to arrive and ive been very pleased. The intonation was off by a little bit per string and the frets needed a slight polish to reduce that "grainy" feel on bends, but relief was set right and action was playable out of the box. I got the natural finish, and it looks gorgeous. I lowered the action, adjusted intonation, and I've been pleased. The neck feels incredible. I've tried headless guitars without the asymmetrical neck and wanted to try that specific feature. I dont know how it compares up to the endurneck, but I love it. If someone said they wanted to buy a budget headless, this would be my fervent recommendation.

Great guitar for a good price

Well made guitar at a great price. Very hard to justify paying 5x more.

I've always been interested in headless guitars, and so when Donner released this recently, I figured I'd give it a shot because I had positive experiences with prior Donner electric guitars. It arrived in 2 days after ordering, and I began to check the setup. The neck relief was spot on, frets rounded, no dead notes on the board, and intonation was perfect. All strings measured 2.2 mm at the 12th fret. There was literally nothing for me to do other than tune it up and start playing. You get a full scale neck with 24 frets, but the size of the guitar took me a couple of days to get used to because of how much smaller it is compared to a full size electric. Once I felt comfortable on it, playing it with super easy. I really appreciate the asymmetrical neck, as it's super comfortable to hold, and allows for easier reach with your fingers.