ST-62MN VW Vintage Series : Surprisingly good

Well recommended for the price!

I am impressed with the following: quick shipping time (I received my Harley Benton ST-62MN VW Vintage Series in Australia within two weeks of ordering it), quality of the guitar straight out of the box, its affordable price.

I am an amateur guitarist of 40 years. I could plug this guitar in and play a gig and sound great. There are no fret buzzes anywhere on the neck! The neck feels nice, the pick ups sound good (I cant test them loud on my amp at the moment, but I think they will be fine for my style).

There are some caveats, which I expected for the price, but again the minor issues are better than expected. The tuners are good. There is some minor out of tune issues (slightly flat) after playing it but remember it just travelled thousands of miles to a hot city. With a silent tuner these are easy resolved between songs at a gig. I expect this will settle down. There are a couple of frets I will get dressed to take a millimetre or two off. Again, nothing to stop taking this guitar to a gig. I will pay for a set up purely because I like the action set for my playing style (jazz and blues) - this is just my personal preference.

I would have given this guitar 5 stars for its price, but the reason I didn't is the whammy bar doesn't do much at all. I can do some chordal whammy with it, but on individual notes it is too stiff.

Regardless, this is an excellent first guitar for anyone who loves the strat style and tone. I bought it to customise it a bit, so I also recommend if for those who like to customise their guitars. Yes this doesn't necessarily mean it is economical in the long run, but I would rather do this and personalise my guitar than spend $800 for a guitar off the shop wall which I still want set up and personalised for my playing.

Well recommended!