Donner builds three lyre harps. They look almost identical in a listing photograph, they sit about twenty dollars apart, and the number in the model code is the only thing that really separates them: seven strings, ten strings, sixteen strings. That number decides what you can play on the instrument for the rest of its life, and it is not a question of how serious you are.
Buy the sixteen. It is the dearest of the three, by about twenty dollars a rung, and it is the only one that plays two full octaves. The seven-string is a genuinely good instrument for a different purpose. The ten-string is the one to walk past.
Donner DLH-003, 16 strings
Two full octaves of C major, G3 up to A5, on a hollow mahogany box with a bronze saddle. Ships with a gig bag, a tuning wrench, a spare set of strings and a beginner’s songbook. It is the highest-rated of the three and the only one that will still be enough in a year.
The three at a glance
| Model | Strings | Tuning | Saddle | Owner rating | Price band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DLH-003 | 16 steel | G3–A5, two octaves of C major | Bronze | 4.5 stars, 670 ratings | $80–100 |
| DLH-001 | 7 steel | D4 E4 G4 A4 B4 D5 E5, pentatonic | Bone | 4.5 stars, 616 ratings | ~$60 |
| DLH-002 | 10 steel | G3–B4, C major | Bone | 3.9 stars, 243 ratings | $70–80 |
All three are what Donner calls box-type: a mahogany soundboard over a hollow shell, rather than a solid slab with strings across it. Donner makes the distinction itself in its own product photographs, and it is worth knowing when you compare these against the unbranded lyres at the same money, most of which are the solid kind. A hollow body is louder and the note lasts longer.
What the string count actually decides
A lyre has no levers, no pedals and no fingerboard. Every string is one note and stays that note, so the set of strings is the set of notes you own. Adding strings is not a matter of comfort or ambition. It is the difference between tunes you can play and tunes you cannot.
The seven-string is tuned D4 E4 G4 A4 B4 D5 E5. There is no C and no F anywhere on it, and no two adjacent strings are a semitone apart — that is what pentatonic means. Nothing you play on it can sound wrong, which is lovely, and no melody with a half-step in it can be played at all, which rules out most songs anyone knows. It is an instrument for improvising, not for learning pieces.
The ten-string fills in the C and the F and runs G3 up to B4 — a full C major scale, but it stops just short of a second octave. You get roughly an octave and a third, which covers simple melodies and runs out on anything with a wide range.
The sixteen-string starts on the same G3 and carries on to A5: G A B C D E F G A B C D E F G A, two complete octaves. That is where a lyre stops feeling like a toy, because you can play a melody and put something underneath it at the same time.
None of the three has any sharps or flats, so all of them are locked to the white notes. That is normal at this price and it is one of the real limits of the instrument — there is more on what a lyre can and cannot do in our comparison of lyres and harps.
The three models
Donner DLH-003, 16 strings
- 16 steel strings, plain on top, wound at the bottom
- G3–A5, two octaves of C major
- Hollow mahogany body with an oval hand hole
- Curved bronze saddle
- Carbon steel zither pins
- Gig bag, wrench, spare strings, songbook
- $80–100
Sixteen strings is the point at which a lyre becomes an instrument rather than a novelty. Two octaves is enough to play a tune with a bass note under it, enough for almost anything in a beginner’s book, and enough that you are not constantly finding the note you want is not there.
It is also the only one in the line with a bronze saddle instead of bone — the strings cross a curved metal bar rather than a straight white one on their way to the anchor eyelets. Do not read too much into that. Donner sells bronze as the upgrade here and bone as the upgrade on the ten-string, which tells you the saddle is not what separates these instruments.
Owners rate it 4.5 stars across roughly 670 ratings, the best in the range, and the complaints that recur are the ones every lyre in this bracket attracts: it takes a while to settle, and it wants retuning often at first.
- Two full octaves — the only model here that has them
- Hollow box body, so it is louder and rings longer
- Best-rated of the three by a clear margin
- Songbook in the box, which the others do not have
- Bright and metallic, closer to a music box than a harp
- Plain zither pins, so tuning is fiddly and drifts for the first month
- No sharps or flats, so you are stuck in C
Donner DLH-001, 7 strings
- 7 steel strings
- D4 E4 G4 A4 B4 D5 E5, pentatonic
- Hollow mahogany body
- Bone saddle
- Gig bag, wrench, spare strings, picks, cloth
- ~$60
Buy this one on purpose or not at all. Seven strings with no semitones between them means every combination sounds consonant, which is why it works so well for a child, for someone with no musical background, or for anyone who wants to make a pleasant noise without learning anything first. Put your thumb across all seven and it is a chord.
What it will not do is play a song. There is no C and no F on the instrument, so the great majority of tunes are simply unavailable, and no amount of practice changes that. If the person you are buying for wants to work through a book of melodies, this is the wrong instrument and the step up to the sixteen is the whole answer.
Within its purpose it is well made — 4.5 stars over roughly 616 ratings, with owners consistently describing it as feeling more expensive than it is. Fewer strings also means fewer things to tune, which on a lyre is a real advantage.
- Everything you play on it sounds right — ideal for children
- Only seven strings to tune and keep in tune
- Cheapest way into the range
- Rated as highly as the sixteen-string
- Pentatonic, so most recognizable melodies cannot be played on it
- Small body, so it is quiet even by lyre standards
- No songbook included
Donner DLH-002, 10 strings
- 10 steel strings
- G3–B4, C major
- Waisted mahogany body, hollow
- Bone saddle
- Gig bag, wrench, spare strings, picks, cloth
- $70–80
The ten-string is squeezed from both sides. It costs meaningfully more than the seven and only a little less than the sixteen, so it gives you neither the price of the one nor the range of the other. Ten strings is an octave and a third: enough for a simple melody, not enough to accompany one.
The bigger problem is that it is the only model in the line that owners are unhappy with. It sits at 3.9 stars against 4.5 for both of its siblings, and the pattern in the complaints is specific rather than general — a run of owners describe strings snapping while they were tuning up to the pitch Donner itself specifies, and describe the tuning pins backing out of the wood as soon as the wrench comes off. Some of them report it happening again with the spare set from the same box.
One correction while we are here: the ten-string has a bone saddle, not a copper one. Donner’s own labelled photograph of this model shows a straight white bone bar, and their own listing says so. The curved metal saddle belongs to the sixteen-string.
We are not linking this one. If you want ten strings rather than seven, the honest answer is that the sixteen is barely dearer and does a great deal more.
- Full C major scale, unlike the seven-string
- Same accessory kit as the rest of the line
- Lowest rated of the three by a wide margin
- Repeated owner reports of strings breaking during tuning
- Costs nearly as much as the sixteen and plays six fewer notes
Tuning is the part people underestimate
Every Donner lyre uses plain zither pins — short steel posts driven straight into the wood, turned with the L-shaped wrench in the box. There are no gears. A guitar machine head turns the string maybe fifteen times for one turn of your hand; a zither pin turns it once. That is the whole reason these instruments have a reputation for being hard to tune, and it is not a fault in any particular unit.
Two things follow. The first is that a new lyre will not hold pitch for a couple of weeks while fresh steel stretches, and you should expect to touch it up every time you pick it up. The second is that overshooting is how strings get broken, because with no gearing between your wrist and the string it is very easy to go past the note before you have heard it.
That is the argument for a clip-on chromatic tuner, and it is the one accessory worth buying alongside any of these. None of them comes with one. A tuner clipped to the frame reads the note off the wood as you turn, so you stop at the note instead of past it. We go through the options in our guide to harp tuners, and there is a step-by-step in how to tune a harp.
| What to add | Why | Price band | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Snark ST-2 clip-on tuner | Reads the note through the wood, so you stop before you overshoot. Not included with any Donner lyre. | ~$22 | Check current price |
| Spare set of 16 ball-end strings | The box holds one spare set. Snapped strings are the most common thing that goes wrong, and Donner’s warranty does not cover them. | ~$8 | Check current price |
Changing a broken string on a lyre is easier than on most instruments — the string has a ball end that sits in an eyelet at the foot, and the other end winds onto the pin. Our guide to changing harp strings covers the technique.
What Donner covers
Donner lists the lyre harp by name in its warranty policy: twelve months from delivery, twenty-four in the EU, on the same terms as its guitars and ukuleles. There is no authorized-dealer condition, which is unusual and in the buyer’s favor.
Strings are explicitly excluded as consumables, alongside batteries and bulbs, and so is anything they class as transport damage — scratches, dents and marks to the finish. So the one part of a lyre harp most likely to fail is the one part the warranty will not replace, which is the practical reason to keep a spare set in the bag rather than to rely on the cover.
The obvious alternative
AKLOT builds a sixteen-string in the same wood, tuned to the same two octaves, and it sits at about eighty dollars all the time rather than moving between eighty and a hundred. It rates slightly lower than the Donner — 4.3 stars against 4.5, over rather more ratings — and the tone is much the same, because a small mahogany body with steel strings across it sounds like a small mahogany body with steel strings across it.
What decides it is the box. The AKLOT arrives with a stick-on transducer pickup and a quarter-inch lead. A lyre is a quiet instrument, so if you have any intention of recording it, putting reverb on it or playing it through an amp, that pickup is worth more than the rating difference. If you are going to play it in a chair with nobody listening, the Donner is the better-rated instrument and comes with a songbook instead — and if the two are level on price when you look, that is the Donner at the bottom of its range rather than the AKLOT at the top of its.
AKLOT 16-String Lyre Harp
Same two octaves, same mahogany, and a transducer pickup and lead in the box. Note the color selector on this listing spans several different instruments, including a seven-string and a fifteen-string nylon harp — the sixteen-string is the mahogany option at around eighty dollars.
We go through the AKLOT range on its own in our AKLOT lyre harp review, and set both brands against the rest of the field in the lyre harp buying guide.
Common questions
Is a Donner lyre harp good for a complete beginner?
Yes, with one caveat. There is nothing to learn before you get a sound out of it — no bow, no embouchure, no fretting hand — so a first note takes about a second. The learning curve is entirely in reading which string is which and in keeping the thing in tune. Take the sixteen-string unless the player is a young child.
Which Donner lyre harp is best for a child?
The seven-string. It is the smallest and lightest, there are only seven strings to keep track of, and the pentatonic tuning means a child cannot play a wrong note. If the child is old enough to want to play actual songs, the sixteen is the better present. Our guide to harps for children covers the wider choice.
Can you play sharps and flats on one?
No. There are no levers and no half-pedals, so every string stays at the note you tuned it to. All three Donner models are laid out on the white notes of a piano. You can retune individual strings by hand to reach another key, but it takes minutes rather than seconds and it is not something to do mid-piece.
How loud is it?
Quiet. Steel strings on a body the size of a hardback book do not move much air, and the note dies away quickly. That is fine in a room and useless in a group. If you need it to carry, you need a pickup, which is the case for the AKLOT above and is covered properly in amplifying a harp.
Is it a lyre or a harp?
Strictly a lyre: the strings run across the face of the body rather than out from a curved neck, and they are the same length as each other rather than getting progressively shorter. The name lyre harp is what everybody sells them under, so it is not worth fighting, but the distinction matters when you are comparing prices. The full comparison is here.
The short version
Sixteen strings for anyone who wants to play music, seven for a child or for making an atmosphere, and nothing in between. Add a clip-on tuner whichever you choose, because the pins have no gearing and that is the only part of owning one of these that is genuinely difficult.