Harley Benton CST-24HB TOL Tobacco Flame Reviews

Great Guitar!!!

It has become my Go too guitar. Play’s wonderfull.

Harley Benton CST-24HB

after several days of owning this guitar, things are starting to stand out.

This guitar has NOT been set up at all. The hardwear has been put on with the WRONG size tools, and as a result, the screws are marked and gnarly, before i have even touched them.

The finishing on the frets is awful!

The clear coat has NOT been polished smooth! Not even the slightest attempt at wood matching on the back.

Action is higher than the eiffel tower, neck is back bowed. And piccups are not even close to the correct height.

THIS is from CHINA! avoid . clearly this factory is not up to scratch. no point in entertaining replacement.

Sound however, is very nice!

what a fantastic guitar

amazing quality guitar for the price. It would have been an amazing guitar at 3 or 4 times its price. Couldn't be more chuffed.

This guitar is better than my 900$ Epiphone Brent Hinds

Pros

Sound is better compared to my 900$ Epiphone Brent Hinds.

Heavy stuff sound a lot better

Clean stuff sounds are a lot lot better.

Really comfortable

Frets are really nice with no rough edges.

Cons

Build quality is not bad but the finishing touches are really bad.

The Holes in the body are really rough.

Inlay is really badly glued. A lot of extra glue. Some parts of the inlay are black and brown for no apparent reason.

The body has many black dots under the lack.

Volume wheel rotates unevenly

Tuners rotate unevenly also

I would give 5 stars if the build quality improves.

Still I really like my first Harley Benton Guitar :)

Top sound, top look, top feel!

I've been playing guitar for 30 years as a gigging musician and passionate hobbyist. I'm not ashamed to say that this guitar has quickly become my favorite in my humble collection of 4 guitars (original '72 Gibson SG Standard, Fender Deluxe Player Strat and Harley Benton TE-40 TBK Deluxe).

The main reason is a practical one. This is the only guitar I own with coil-splitting. This means I have a high output humbucking rocker (similar to my SG) and a richer sounding single-coil (somewhat similar to my start) at my finger tips all the time. The other reason I'm unable to put this guitar down for more than one or two songs is that I simply love the way it looks(!!!) and feels in my hands.

The only "problem" I noticed was that after I lowered the action quite a bit, I had to slightly file down the 10th, 14th and 16th frets. But let's not forget the price(!)

All in all this guitar has inspired me to play more than I had been lately. I can spend hours jamming between rock, blues and clean jazz tones without ever putting the guitar down. Well done Harley Benton!!! Now if you'll just make a deluxe edition strat..... :) :) :)

Unplayable on arrival

I was looking forward to receiving this guitar so you can understand my disappointment when it wasn't playable. The nut on the low E string was cut so low it was lower than the first fret. On first inspection, I noticed the action was so high one could place a match book under the strings without touching the neck. I tried lowering the strings but the low E just laid on all the frets. To make it somewhat playable, I made a mixture of plastic and superglue and rebuilt the nut to raise the strings at the first fret. I spent about two days trying to get it right. I would have sent to back but the cost to ship is just to high compared to the cost of the guitar, So what I have now is wall art,

looks good but Neck has a problem, need some serious modifications

there is no way to get the action right, its always ether too high or getting fret buzz during bends, its a good looking guitar but the playability is not that great. maybe its just this unit, other harley bentons play better

Wonderful instrument

I'd been looking at this guitar for months, and finally ordered it a few weeks ago. I'd seen negative reviews with comments about quality - from inlays, to frets. The guitar that arrived to me is amazing. The finish and grain are flawless, the neck feels great, the frets are also good. The action is a little high, and that can be fixed.

I love the way this instrument sounds, and the feel is terrific. The pickups have a nice bite, and the options with them give a range of sound. I love how I can get feedback at low volume, and the guitar gives a timber that my others lacked. Overall a terrific buy!

Don't bother

just buy a cheaper guitar

I like it!!!

Surprisingly good for the money!!!!

Good guitar!

Put on 12-flatwounds, and you have a jazz-machine.

Good for the price

Bought for my daughter, it's a well built guitar that feels sturdy in the hand and the finish is surprisingly good considering the price. Intonation / frets / machine heads etc pretty good and it plays well with no buzzing. Would recommend for price.

Great guitar

I've had this guitar for about 1 month now and cant put it down. feels great and plays even better. I had to have a set up on it ( I do all my guitars any how) smooth and great tones. buy one today

I cant believe they can make these this good for the price

I wasn't expecting too much when I ordered this guitar but boy was I surprised at the quaity of the finish. If someone put a differant brand name on the headstock ypu'd believe it.

The pick ups are top quality too and it sounds like a far more expensive guitar. When you play it acoustically the shortcomings show up but not so much that you'd regret buying it. For the money nothing else comes close. It's a savage axe for the money, even for twice or three times the money.

WONDERFUL

PRS on a budget? No, it's it a guitar in it's own right. I didn't have to do anything to it, it played great straight out of the box. The tuners are smooth as are the controls. The finish is floorless(?). The pickups are far better than they should be. It would be cheap if was 5 times the price!

An amazing deal!

This was my first Harley Benton guitar. I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised. I've owned guitars in a similar price range as well as ones that were 5x more expensive i.e. USA Telecasters, strats, etc. This one certainly holds its own.

The fit and finish on this guitar is fantastic. It's a real looker. It has a great tobacco burst and a wonderfully figured top. The back has a distinct mahogany grain and is rich in color. The fret ends were all polished with no sharp edges.

The tone from this guitar is great. A solid growl from the bridge pickup, and the neck pickup has a nice round tone while retaining some spunk. The middle position with the two pickups together gives a sort of spanky tone similar to the middle position on a stratocaster with the added depth and fullness of a humbucker. I anticipated changing out some electronics or making some adjustments to improve the guitar, but at this point I have no plans to change anything.

The guitar arrived in the USA completely in tune, safely packaged, and ready to rock. I have no doubt that this is going to be my new number one guitar.

Lovely surprise

On receiving the Harley Benton CST-24 TOL I was impressed by the quality and overall finish no nasty surprises.

I only play the guitar for my own enjoyment, just the odd jam sessions with mates, I have a number of guitars costing between 15 to 20 times more and can honestly say the gap is not that great between how they play and sound.

I made a few adjustments lowered the action plays great,

if you are thinking of purchasing a Harley Benson and unsure, its a cracking product really good value for your money guitar.

A great buy

Guitar arrived 2 days ago and looks superb. How anyone can make a guitar like this

for so little amazes me. There are a few cosmetic blemishes bur nothing worth a mention. Out of the box the action was way high so sorted that out and gave the truss rod a tweek now it plays nicely.

Sound wise pretty good considering the price. The humbuckers a little darker than the rest of my guitars, more jazzy sounding but still very good.

I have a lot of USA made guitars some costing 10 to 20 times what I paid for this but got to say they are not 10 to 20 times better.

Would definitely reccommend this guitar and will probably buy a few more Harley Bentons if this one is anything to go by.

Absolutely amazing!

I received this guitar 2 days after i ordered like always!

It came well packaged with all the tools you need to adjust this amazing beauty!

Out of the box there were no flaws on the guitar,string action was a little high,but no big issues.

So i changed the strings (the daddarios it came with were ok...but its my normal routine with new guitars) and the i gave it a setup.

20 minutes later i played it through my eleven rack and its a very versatile guitar. the pickups got a nice charakter and work great with gain too.

The overall build quality of this guitar is just stunning and unbelievable for the price!

Highly recommended!!

Lovely guitar - fantastic value

I purchased this Harley Benton CST-24TOL along with a number of other HB guitars, 5 in all.

For the record, I have been playing guitar for over 30 years as a semi-pro and have a number of expensive Fenders, Gibsons, Brian Moore etc .

I was really blown away by the quality of this guitar when I pulled it from the box, the finish is great, and although the flame top obviously can't be right up there with the likes of PRS it is still a respectable effort. The neck is quite comfortable, if feels ...grippy...but not too chunky..I have small hands so I prefer smaller necks but I've played this guitar for a few hours no problem. The frets are quite well finished, no sharp edges, and seem quite polished. The action was slightly higher than I prefer but I easily lowered the bridge a couple of turns to adjust that, no fret buzz , I can bend strings higher up with no choking. I changed the strings immediately to 9-42 set (came with 10-46) and oiled the fretboard at the same time.

I checked the truss rod and it seems to be at the end of its relief so If I wanted to straighten the neck I wouldn't be able to unfortunately, hopefully I won't need to.

The hardware is fine too, good tuners, reasonably good pickups (Wilkinson) not too hot but definately good for blues, rock, jazz and even a bit of twang in the middle position. All in all, well pleased with this guitar and I will probably buy one of the other Harley Bentons PRS alike..Harley Benton CST-24T Paradise Amber Flame to go with it.

I'll do some other reviews on the Harley Bentons I got too...there were some other crackers! Well pleased with this one.