HB-35 CH Vintage Series : Good guitar, but bad electronic

2 years ago

Frankly speaking, I don't really share the general enthusiasm for this guitar. I agree that in terms of manufacturing, it is perfect: the strings lie low, do not buzzing, the neck is straight and comfortable, the frets do not protrude, the tuning pegs are smooth and doesn’t has any backlash, the guitar holds tune well, the pickup selection switch working distinctly, generally the appearance is impeccable, I would say that the instrument looks much more beautiful even than its original (Gibson- 335). But then the disadvantages became - mainly they are related to electronic, and more precisely - to pickups (humbuckers). They are bad. They generate background noise (how is that possible?!) It is well known that the biggest advantage of humbuckers is absence of background noise, but here they make buzzing noise like ordinary single coil pickups. Sound, which produced by these humbuckers are OK – it is suitable for performing saturated (“meat”) soloing with overdrive, or distortion, but these pickups absolutely inappropriate for any funk, rhythm-n-blues or any other “speed” styles – the sound is very muddiness and rumble. When I’ve tried to correct this sound with the help of EQ – sound became offensively harshness, and background noise became more. To summarizing: definitely this guitar needs customization - it's absolutely necessary to change pickups (as well, as appropriate potentiometers), but of course it will much increase the guitar cost/ price.

Image Harley Benton HB-35 CH Vintage Series

Technical Data

  • Manufactured by Harley Benton
  • Released in 2015
  • Average price : $216
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