DC-600 VI Vintage Series : Harley Benton DC-600 VI

The Harley Benton DC-600 VI offers very good value for money at £179 and would be an excellent first guitar for someone requiring a wider range of sonic possibilities.

I bought a Vintage VS6 SG second hand a few months ago for a song on eBay and this has become my favourite guitar so I thought I would treat myself to a three pickup version for my birthday when I saw the HB.

I will start with the things that I like:

The guitar was very well packed. The first thing that struck me was the cream paint job. Absolutely flawless and beautiful. The neck is also very nice and the action is low. The overall weight of the guitar is pleasing and I would say perfect

The fretboard is ok but not perfect. It looked a bit dry so I gave it a coat of lem oil. The inlays have been put in well but there were a couple of wood imperfections on a couple of frets.

The frets have no sharp edges which are often present on cheaper guitars. More on them later.

The electronics work perfectly and the pots have a lovely smooth feel and are easy to use with the top hat knobs. The pickups are ok for clean stuff and offer a wide range of tone with the three volume and one tone set up. They don't offer the same quality of sound when playing through distortion as the Vintage VS6 SG However the latter guitar is twice as expensive!

Now the things I didn't like as much:

The electronics backplate was very badly cut. I had to take it off, smooth it off with a file and wet and dry paper. The screws for it also weren't countersunk. The pick guard screws holes had also been countersunk too deeply.

The intonation was way out on the D string. I had to remove all the strings on the guitar ( which weren't put on professionally- didn't stay in tune) and reverse the intonation blade on the D string to set it up properly. The intonation screws have Phillips heads which I have never seen on a tunamatic bridge before and don't like them! What's wrong with normal flat head screws on tunamatic bridges?

I used a Rolson flat head screwdriver to adjust them having had previous problems with Chinese Phillips screws stripping in the past. The most annoying thing however were the frets weren't polished which lead to any string bending producing a horrible grating sound and feel when initiated.

Who wants to be getting out masking tape and wire wool on a new guitar to polish the frets. Not me!

However now that's done and I've put on some Ernie Ball 10's

( properly). The guitar sounds a lot better and stays in tune.

In conclusion as I said the guitar offers great value for money but isn't perfect for an experienced guitarist. It could have been if a little more effort and care had been taken. I do realise that every second counts in terms of costs on these guitars. It would be better to put the price up to £200 and rectify the faults I've mentioned I believe.