Harley Benton CST-24 Black Cherry Flame DLX Reviews

Harley Benton CST-24 Black Cherry Flame DLX

I'm so impressed with the quality of this guitar, looks fantastic and sounds brilliant, plays really well....

For the price its awesome, its used for gigging and studio work.

Amazing guitar for the price!

i bought this guitar for songs that are in Eb tuning, all the hardware seems solid and the pickups are great with lots of gain.

the top is stunning and a lot of people thought this is a very expensive guitar.

there are a few finish flaws but you cant fault it at this price.

if you play anything that require more gain than blues then this guitar can do a very great job!

great sound but needs some work

I bought a few CST guitars and all have somethings in common :

1 They need some work

Fret-jobs and polishing for instance

2. They play amazing and sound fantastic after some work

If you are willing and able to put in some work the CST guitars compare to any PRS I have played so far.

maybe not in quality of used parts and finish but in playability and sound

Nice

Either I'm incredibly lucky and got a prime specimen or HB upped their game a bit because by the looks of it, it's really nice and I don't hardly anything to complain on!

It has a birth mark on the lower left section but I don't mind! And the only other thing I noticed was a little bit of red left over on the binding, nothing much!

-Coil tap standard on the guitar!!! Even tough it doesn't say anything on the web page.

-Frets all nice and level, no fret buzz

-No glue or any other stuff left over on the fretboard

-Fretboard is not as dark as I tought it was gonna be looks nice and doesn't stain the fingers but is a little dry, nothing a little lemon oil can't fix!

-One solid piece of mahagony for the body, I can't see any joints or other pieces! :O

The guitar stays in tune really well, and as far as I can hear, no intonation problems at all! I initially wanted the trem version but I watched EytscPi42's review and decided against it. And also it's cheaper!

Taking the train to valuetown- choo choo!

I was looking for an upgrade from my 2004 Harley Benton Les Paul (which is still decent to this day) and was checking out guitars in the low mid-range, pricing-wise. I compared Epiphone SGs, Squiers, cheap Fenders and such, the only requirement I had was 1 humbucker, so fatstrats and the like were taken into consideration. After much research I found EytschPi42's review of the CST-24T on Youtube and came to realise that this guitar is about as good as you can get below ~450EUR (i was looking to spend more than this, originally), and that it's so cheap you could still upgrade the pups and easily stay within budget.

The model I received has 5 minor cosmetic flaws, none of which were enough for me to even consider sending it back: the saddle isn't perfectly flush with the neck (~1-2mm too short), a couple of fret-ends could use smoothing off, the center-line in the paintjob running up the middle of the guitar isn't aligned with the bottom strap-pin, the wood on the back is showing some minor damage underneath the paint (looks like someone put it down too hard before the strap-pin was attached), and there are two minor indentations on the tip of the bottom horn, it looks like someone stabbed a toothpick into the clear coat twice.

The Wilkinson pups seem pretty decent for the price (no buzz except some at really high gain) but will be replaced anyway so I didn't test them too extensively. The guitar arrived playable, but I will need to re-do the setup, seeing fret-buzz at the low frets and high action at the high frets, nothing extreme, though. This leads to the next point:

I would go against EytschPi42's recommendation and actually get the version with the tremolo, simply so you have a bridge that's easily adjusted. The wraparound bridge provided with this model is adjustable to a degree, but I suspect it's a large part of the reason this guitar didn't come set up as well as it could have been. I will update once I've re-done the set up, but for now let's just say that you could block off the tremolo and have an adjustable bridge, or you could buy this version and spend another 120EUR on a more adjustable wraparound bridge if you can't get the guitar intonated properly, I guess the choice/risk is yours- if I had to do it again I'd spend 40EUR more for the trem to save 120.

Lastly, I can't confirm what I've read and seen about Ebonol fretboards, mine isn't pitch-black, doesn't look plastic-y, it simply looks like really dry rosewood, which is fine with me. Mine also doesn't have any glue or other residue on it, only some minor scratches along the bindings (can't feel them, only see them if you look very closely).

All in all I am frankly ecstatic to have such a nicely made body to work with, I don't see how it could get any better at this price point.