Harley Benton CST-24HB TOL Tobacco Flame 4-stars Reviews

Great Guitar But....

I found this guitar to be great quality and great looking also sounds good. my only complaint is that although the specs say the frets are Medium jumbo they are DHP30S which are 1.45mm high! I regard these as Extra Jumbo, I think a Medium jumbo is around 1mm high that is my preference (a world of difference I should have sent it back but it was too beautiful) For any new purchase I now need assurance that when specs say Medium jumbo they are not 1.45mm high.

Excellent for the price

I was a bit apprehensive ordering this. I figured with the additional scope of the inlays on the neck, the rest of the fit and finish would suffer...I was wrong. Frets are nice and level, and polished well. The edges are polished without any sign of damage on the fret board.

The TOL inlay is very well done here, shocking for a guitar of this price point. I don't see any sign of filler or glue. The f holes are just 'ok'. Not completely even and some roughness to one (like an accidental swipe with some tool perhaps) but these are trivial and aren't visible except up close inspection. General finish is 8/10 I'd say.

Wiring is good, and the switch and pots work as expected (no noise turning the pots or cutting off from the switch position)

Intonation is slightly off in the default bridge position with the truss set (neck almost flat). About 5 cents at the 12th fret across the board. That is a good consistency though as you could move the bridge back slightly with the set screws (which are missing). This is something I don't like about wrap around bridges in general is the lack of fine adjustments possible, but for this particular guitar pretty good and correctable.

Random thoughts...

Stays in tune pretty well, but could benefit from better tuners, I think.

Balanced, not neck heavy.

Sound is subjective of course but I think it sounds great and has a lot of versatility with all the coil splitting you can do. Pickups aren't as hot as my EC1000, but is not really a critique, just a difference. Plays pretty well and no string buzzing with the action set typically (kind of middle of the road factory settings).

At the end of the day, you get a lot for your money with this brand, at least from my limited experience. I'll definitely order again.

Good guitar with a fantastic look.

In general at first glance this appears to be a super fine guitar, but if you look closer you will find some glue residue around the joint of the neck and body. Not much, but enough to pull it down in my mind. The guitar is easy to play and has good but not perfect sound in my opinion. I had to sand a little on the edges of the frets to get these completely smooth with the fretboard, but then it became very super smooth and very good to use. Single coil push / pull function pulls up again. The guitar is semi acoustic and you can practice without an amplifier. It took mee a few weeks before the intonation settled, but it ended 100% at the end. All in all, a good guitar at a reasonable price that I can recommend.

Beautiful tree inlay on neck

Beautiful guitar. Sound/pickups are pretty good. As with my TE-40 (and soon my new 62 Strat VW) i will need to spend a lot of time and energy filing the fret sprouts. I can live with the trade-off for the inexpensive guitar (which other wise has HIGH quality) and the consistent fret sprout issues. The instruments are easily worth the investment in time and money. I have five so far.....so I'm a fan.

Very good...but...

I am not judging this guitar based on its price point...it's simply a very good guitar hands down. It has a nice woody hollow-body tone and the neck is flat and fast. My only complaint is the badly black-shield-painted wood inside the F-hole...this spoils this beauty of a guitar when you look closely. The shield paint is uneven, scrappy, and was obviously done through the F-hole. Moreover, the wires are not well hidden. I don't care about the price... these things are easily fixable. Please, Harley Benton, keep your standards high and get it right.

good for starting

good for starting as 1st hollow body guitar.

but this one come with small fret bzzzz and bad machine head .

something a liuter can fix in few minutes of work.

by the way I'm happy with this guitar.

Lovely guitar

Does need a setup but really nice guitar. Looks great, sounds great.

I swapped the bridge for a Gotoh 510UB and it's perfect. The right radius for the bridge, low action, no fret buzz, and perfect intonation. Highly recommend this bridge for this guitar.

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!

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 :)

I like it!!!

Surprisingly good for the money!!!!

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.

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.