SC-550 II Silver Burst : Beautiful guitar. Worth the wait?

I ordered this guitar this winter, when it was back-ordered by something like 10-12 weeks. Owning a couple of the 550-ii model guitars, I expected good things, and a distinctly beautiful piece, to boot. Unfortunately, the extended wait forced me to increase my collection with a couple additional Harley Bentons. Such is fate. :)

The guitar arrived a couple weeks prior to the initial prediction. Nicely boxed, and with zero damage. Fit and finish of the guitar body and paint job are superb. No observable defects. The neck is straight, smooth and fast. Sound is excellent, and on par with my other 550-ii's; nothing new to report here.

Only real nit-picks are that several of the fretboard inlays are cut slightly undersized for the corresponding cut-outs, and the inlays are set slightly off-centre within the cutouts. Nothing affecting sound or durability; just not as superb in appearance as on my other 550's. Also, nobody I know can understand the use the cheap, non-locking, green-knobbed tuners. They work just fine, but look completely out of place on this particular guitar. I could overlook this choice if the tuners were easily replaceable; however the mounting screw location on these traditional, Kluson-pattern tuners makes finding a quality replacement a bit of an expensive proposition.

Overall, an excellent guitar for the money, no doubt! Now, if HB would just choose the same locking tuners as equipped on the SC-II or older, 550+ models, they'd have completely nailed it!