Harley Benton CST-24 Black Cherry Flame DLX Reviews

Great look good playability

For the cost very good value. Neck is slim and easily playable. Pick up response is fine and the addition of splitting the pick/coil tapping adds variety to the tones available.

Excellent Value and Quality

I was skeptical of ordering a guitar online, from overseas, sight unseen but at $200 US shipped it was half the price of a used SE so I gave it a shot. I was not disappointed! Excellent weight, quality fretwork, and nice sounding pickups. The photos do not do justice of how good this guitar looks in person. The neck feel is superb, I tend to grab this off the wall over my American Strat. I was extremely impressed...so much so my next 2 purchases were HB guitars, and I'm looking for more!

Heavy is good

This is a solid guitar in every way.I got the fixed bridge for sustain and in combo with the weight,this delivers.Great look and fretboard etc and pickups are indeed good enough to keep on here.Along with the coil tap it is not boring.

Impressed!

First time I've ever bought a guitar without trying it out first. For the money I don't think anything can compare. I've owned dozens of guitars including a lot of high end vintage instruments. Right out of the box this thing was ready to play. Action, intonation, neck, frets were all fine, didn't have to adjust anything which is rare. I managed a music store for several years and almost all the guitars we got in had to to be professionally set up. Pickups and electronics are also great for the price. If your the guy that is gonna be picky about finish imperfections such as a few places on the binding where you can see some bleeding of the color from the wood stain, which was just a couple on my instrument, then maybe you gotta complaint. The tuners are a little stiff but work fine, no slipping. I've played many guitars at a much higher price bracket that didn't compare. My first Harley Benton, but definitely not my last. UPDATE: So i've had the guitar for around three months or so and I have decided that I will upgrade the tuners. They seemed to work fine at first but now I'm starting to notice like dead spots or jumping up or down all of a sudden when I'm trying to tune. Haven't had any other issues thus far and I play almost every day. UPDATE... Started have a little problem with keeping in tune when doing a lot of bends. Switched the nut for a bone one, problem solved. Not a big issue for me but if your gonna have to pay someone to do this for you it's something you should consider. It still remains one of my regular players and one of my favorites.

Quality, at an affordable price

Don't know how you guys do it, but please, keep on doing it.

Don't know what the relationship between the UK and the EU will be like in future, but if favourable, I will return for more!

Lost one star for quality because there is a dent in the finish on the back on the edge of the body relief. Apart from that, action a little high, no big deal for an experienced guitarist.

very affordable prs-type guitar

In general, it is a very well-built guitar for 1/5 of a price of an original custom SE 24 model - that was the main reason for me to try this instrument.

Out-of-the-box it wasn't absolutely flawless. Frets were not polished, several frets had relatevely deep notches, obstructing from bending the high E-string, seemed like someone on the factory in Vietnam levelled the frets by a hammer after the strings had been attached;-) Lacquer on the back side of the neck also was't perfectly polished with some hand prints on it. Fretboard was absolutely dry with spots of glue here and there... So before plugging the guitar into my amp I had to spend a several hours polishing frets, sanding and lemonoilng the fretbord.

Anyway, overall build quality of the guitar body and neck is really good, its nice to hold it in your hands. The body is just beautiful, the guitar is considerably lighter than a full-body LPs, all frets access is easy, neck is quite slim and narrow compared to mentioned above prs SE, very playable, I should say. Tuners are OK, they do the job.

If you decide to buy this guitar pay attention to a very 'specific' prs-type bridge setup: before you try to adjust string action by large coin-slot bolts be sure you fully unscrew small black mensuration-setup screws! And by the way you can't properly setup the action before you complete your scale length setup - when you move the bridge the string action changes. So the whole procedure of of setting up this guitar can take an hour of your precious time.

Pickups are not an absolute junk, they are quite decent, but sound a bit weak compared to traditional Dimarzio or SD humbackers, and for sure, being coil-splitted do not sound like real single-coils. The guitar gives you a lot of different intonations, a lot of room for experiments, but you can't substitute a LP and a Strat by this one guitar.

To wrap it up, its a great value-for-money guitar, reasonably priced - not only for beginners, with no real competition in its price rage. Just keep in mind its price and your expectations will be met when you receive it :-)

WOW

I was blown away when I first saw this guitar. I did not expect such a deeply flamed top. Stunning.

For this price point you have to expect a few minor finishing flaws which there are if you really look close. But all I care about is playability- as in a straight neck with level frets with a low action. Check, check, and check. The fact that it is beautiful is a bonus. This is my 3rd HB guitar. I put in a request for a good quality one with the previously mentioned attributes and they delivered. Did I just get lucky or did this actually get picked for me? Either way I am a happy (guitar-playing) camper.

Set-up out of the box was....well the neck relief and action height were good, but it was not even closely intonnated properly. Takes some patience and time but I was able to set the intonnation and now it sounds spot on.

Lastly, compared to the PAF Roswells in my SC-Custom, these HAF's are definately higher output but there is a mid/treble harshness to them that I'm not in love with. Ok for now but I will likely upgrade the pups. I hate the idea of spending as much on pups as I did on the guitar but for this one I surely will.

CST-24 good for the money

Good looking guitar. Fine neck profile. Comes setup for low action. Split coil feature adds more noise than I expected, but the humbuckers work well. Great body contour. Holds tune well so far. One bridge set screw was missing and the other bridge set screw was slightly cross-threaded. I immediately replaced those screws with 4M x 8mm stainless steel screws obtained locally. The neck pickup seemed loose in the frame, but the bridge pickup is solid. I may have to contour the pickup pole pieces to match the fret radius after I determine the individual string response, but I have to play the instrument a while longer.

H-B CST-24 B C F DLX

A month ago I purchased a CST-24 Hardtail for myself was quite impressed. So was my oldest son who just happened to have a birthday coming up, so I ordered one for him this time a CST-24 Hardtail Black Cherry Flame DLX. Well it arrived in 12 days in fine condition. Fit & Finish well executed, even in tune, will have to reset the neck a little, and intonation but that's to be expected. All in all nice workmanship, finish, and price. I'm quite sure he'll be as happy/impressed as was I... Again good job guys.

Can't fault it. Played it at a gig and went down a storm.

Amazing looking and sounding Guitar

The sound of this guitar and all the volume controls and quality of the pickups on this guitar are well beyond my expectations and should get 7-8 stars at least for just those features. I play mainly jazz-funk, reggae and some rock and this comes up with all the sounds and really I should mention that Carlos Santana should endorse this guitar (LOL). On the negative side , I had to pay additional money for a set-up, usually the case with budget guitars and thinking about changing the machine heads, but as is it is really playable and enhanced my playing and sound range (and also got my long lost Carlos sound back). I highly recommend this guitar for all genres of music.

CST 24

For the money a very nice guitar especially for upgrading if you are into that sort of thing like myself. After a few weeks I was itching to change the pickups even though there was nothing wrong with the buckers it came with, so I put a set of Duncans in, sounds a bit better but not a drastic change in sound, now here is what really impressed me with this guitar... I put the Roswell humbuckers in a Epiphone ES-339 pro that sounded dull with no sustain but wow! what a difference those Roswell`s made... unbelievable how much better the epi sounds now, it is like the Roswell`s where made for a semi-hollow body guitar.

The best guitar for that price

I play guitar mostly at home and I've always imagined some kind of good guitar that will play pure tones as a strata and also have a stronger tone for heavy metal.

I changed more budget guitar because I'm not a professional musician, but none met the above criteria.

My choice however fell on Harley Benton 24 without any tremolo, because of its favorable price and its excellent appearance.

After two days of use, I can only say that I am amazed by the quality of the production and the tone that this guitar can play.

pros :

Excellent tuners, veary good pickups, comfortable neck, excellent electronics, push/pull: coil split, and of course incredible look.

cons:

Well, they do not have much, it may be harder for a longer gig, its weight is 4.38kg, but since I play most in the house, it's not a flaw.

They could have been better off polishing the frets.

I would recommend this guitar to everyone because there are so many options for both pure sound and distortion, a truly versatile guitar.

I know that some people complain about the quality of these guitars, but I can say that this is not the case for me.

I can only say that the guitar is phenomenal.

I am actually impressed

Guitar arrived in perfect condition, sounds awesome and feels amazing. Well there are few finish imperfections, but you really have to look for them very closely.

Problem is only one point

The frets were full of deep scratches.

Harley Benton guitar

This guitar was shipped to California. It looks very beautiful with a high level of quality and craftsmanship. It looks like a much more expensive guitar. The box was dropped hard upside down in shipping which caused a small ding at the very tip of the head stock. I repaired the area with a matching color of women's nail polish using several coats to build the area up. It looks o.k.now.

Awesome starter guitar

Excellent PRS style guitar. Pickups are decent. Finish is really good. Tuners are solid and stable. Weight is on a heavier side. The only negative for me is saddle-less bridge, couldn't get exact intonation on all strings no matter what I did, would prefer 2 piece bridge construction instead. Overall good guitar, probably the best you'd get for the money. Recommended as a beginner or project build guitar.

way above average on a guitar this price

this is the best guitar for the price easy every thing from the tuners (which are perfect) to the bridge to the finish i would recommend this guitar to any body looking for a great cheep guitar

i drew on mine with a sharpie to make it look like Brad Delson's solider guitar and i am so happy with it

i plan on buying the black one as well cause i can have fun altering it and modding it to look like Mikes Shinoda's black with white and gaffer tape on it cause who? does'nt like doing that kinda thing

but yes i am not the greatest person at setting up a guitar but once id fiddled about with this (bridge height and intonation) it is a great guitar i hav'nt altered any thing it don't need any thing changing tbh a new nut wouldnt be a bad move tho but its all better than good in my opinion

for a cheep guitar id say 8/10

to get a ten it'd have to have better intonation but its not bad and a better cut nut (just feels like the note bends on the first fret)

but this is just my opinion besides these fixable issues id still buy lots!! more

a few in black and one of each colour

Harley Benson CST-24 Black Cherry Flame DLX

I have listened to and read many product reviews of this guitar before I decided to purchase one.

NO REGRETS - buy one !!!!

There are people who have written ridiculous reviews with the most unrealistic comments about tiny imperfection of the paint finish or glue spots and dry fingerboards - GET REAL you guys you are not buying a ¤3000 guitar - these guitars are real value for money - yes they are made to a price range - but the build quality and features exceed the price and represent a first class purchase - my only comments about the the guitar would relate to the pick ups - the hum buckers are a little wooly/bass and I prefer the coil tap position - but I would not be changing the pick ups - no need to with the numerous effects available

In conclusion - a lovely guitar played good out of the box - intonation OK - changed the strings to 9s - lemon oiled the finger board - NOTHING wrong with the guitar to want me to send it back - BUY ONE you will not regret it - enjoy

Great value for money

This was my first Harley Benton product. I was quite curious given how much they are talked and praised over the internet.

The guitar came well packaged and protected. First, the bad: the strings felt oxidized and stiff. Going over the guitar, the is a tiny imperfection where a bit of red paint went over the binding, on the cutway. That's it for the bad.

The good: the guitar looks great. On this color it's almost like Brad Delson's Custom 24. I put some black speed knobs on it, personal preference.

The weight and feel is great. Handling the guitar is feels like a quality, sturdy instrument that it is. Intonated easily and does not loose tuning even on drop C#.

The tone is good, the pickups are not your djenty type but they do classic/alternative/heavy rock very well. Not in a hurry to replace the pickups (I always do). Electronics do their job well and coil splitting is a nice addiction and makes for a versatile guitar. Pots and switch have a positive action and feel.

Overall this guitar is a bargain for what it costs. It rivals guitars costing double, and makes me want to get a whole lot more Harley Bentons. Much recommened.