Harley Benton CST-24T Black Flame 5-stars Reviews

Love it. What a great guitar.

Fit and finish is great for the price. Set up was good out of the box. Sounds great. Seems like a much more expensive guitar.

Pleasantly Surprised!

After finding a few reviews online and seeing the noise surrounding Harley Benton Guitars. I was very curious to see for myself what they were like. I was not disappointed.

Ordering the item was a breeze and was delivered in less than a week to Canada! After opening the box and removing the covering. I was quite blown away by the very beautiful flame top. After inspecting the guitar, there was no issues to be found with fret work, finish, joints, or even loose parts (knobs, switches and jack) that I often find with in store bought items (PRS, Epiphone and so forth). The guitar was even in tune and intonation was perfect! A bonus in my books!

The sound of the Rosswell Pickups have a unique vibe. Lots of output to push genres from blues to various metal tones. But not too harsh where it loses clarity and response. And the coil split adds a extra variety to the sound.

Overall the guitar is well above expectation and honestly, I prefer it over the feel of many of the PRS SE models. And I have owned a few!

I will be certainly be looking forward to my next HB purchase.

Best Value for money guitar.

For the price its the best you can get!!

After reading a lot of reviews and videos on you tube decide to buy this.

great for all levels of musicians just a fun guitar to have

arrived perfectly no damages.

had to just tune and it was ready to go!!!

Excellent guitar. Just buy it !

I am a professional guitarist and guitar teacher. This is an excellent guitar every bit as good as a PRS. I bought this guitar because I prefer the sound of the Roswell bridge pickup over the PRS, and because the split coil sounds are more usable, plus of course the price!

The guitar came perfectly set up and in tune. The tremolo was hard tailed, but I prefer the trem to be able to go a half step up, so I slackened off the screws. This was made easier by some slits cut into the back plate. I also tightened the tremolo arm slightly. This is done using the small allen key supplied - the screw can be found by pushing down the tremelo and its on the right hand side. The supplied tuners were perfectly ok, although I swapped them for some locking tuners as I use the trem a fair bit. Vanson make a set that are a perfect fit, even the screw holes line up. Stability is very good. The nut is graphite and correctly cut. Frets were perfectly flat and checked with a fret rocker. This is an excellent guitar and I'll be using it live!

Awesome!

I absolutely love this guitar. I just ordered my second one in Ocean Blue Flame.

A nice surprise

This guitar surprised me, the quality build and playability were outstanding for an affordable price. I have had high end guitars that didn't play quite as good. I would recommend this to any guitarist, from beginner, intermediate or professional. I will be gigging with this guitar in the future.

Dang

For a $200 guitar, I was expecting less than standard. But everything is great, the finish, the build, the sound. Really excellent.

LOVE IT!

This is my second CST-24. Thrilling, yet again.

Neck and frets are great, flawless finish, beautiful flamed top WOW! Aggressive dives on the bar knocked a few strings out of tune, so a few minutes of filing the nut slots fixed that easy.

Tuning keys would be the only thing I would upgrade to locking Sperzels.

Superb instrument

Firstly let me start by saying that I've had both good and bad experiences with Harley Benton. On the one hand I have a 00 acoustic and I love it. On the other I briefly had a vintage style st copy and I didn't get on with that at all. It had some faulty wiring and hardware.

This instrument is flawless. On unboxing and visual inspection the instrument is beautiful, and everything is immaculate. The finish of the bindings and veneers are perfect. Frets are smooth and even. Everything is perfect.

In the hand, the guitar feels light and comfortable, the neck is not super thin, but not fat either. About the same as my Epiphone Les Paul std.

The hardware is all solid. Nice accurate tuners. Solid wilkinson bridge which is easy to adjust the action with, and it goes pretty low without any fret buzz. I don't use a tremolo, so I won't judge that.

In playability, again I'm nicely impressed. I usually use 9 gauge strings, and this came with 10 gauge and I left them on, because it' so nice to play already. I've never done this with a new guitar.

The sounds is really nice. The roswell pickups are pretty quiet and responsive. think and present in normal mode and satisfying clucky and sparkly with the coil split.

OK I'm astounded. This is better than all my other guitars that cost at least twice as much. I was dithering between this guitar and a higher end PRS SE for about 900 euros. I went for this thinking that I could always send it back and then go for the PRS SE if I wasn't happy. Well I can tell you I would still have been happy had I payed 900 for this one! I'm ecstatic that I only paid 220!

I'm now trying to think of a bad point for this guitar, and I genuinely cant. This is truly exceptional Harley Benton! Thank you.

Overall very good

Changed the tuners for sperzal locking tuners. This was my preference, nothing wrong with the standard tuners. The guitar is very good, setup was almost perfect for my playing requirements.

Would recommend.

CST-24T BLACK FLAME

''WOW'' what a great guitar, i have 6 guitars and none of them come close to this for a flawless finish, beautiful tone and the setup was perfect, all i had to do was keep it shining and play it. thank you burt

Better than expected.

About me:

Been playing for over 35 years, average at best. Mostly a 70s rockhead, Stones, CCR... I can play anything if you don’t mind it sounding like Chuck Berry….Ha Ha…

I have about 20 guitars (only 1 acoustic..) Some good - USA 72 Deluxe Tele, PRS SE Custom 24 Exotic Top, Ibanez S series, some not so good – the wife has a Hanna Montana Washburn… crazy woman…

I recently bought the HB CST24HB and TE-70 Paisley and loved them so much that I followed up by buying the CST-24T Black Flame and the TE-90QM Trans Red.

Review of the CST-24T Black Flame:

Pros:

This guitar looks amazing.

It has a slim neck that plays fast. The action is low, <1.5mm@ 6th.

The coil split is very usable and the tones are excellent – full to grit.

Very versatile guitar that handles cleans through to JCM800 very well.

Cons:

The trem bridge only dives.

Finger board was a bit dry... no big deal.

When comparing this guitar against the PRS SE Custom 24 Exotic Top:

I love the PRS, the quality and feel.

I love the HB, the quality and feel.

The HB has a slimmer neck (think almost Wizard II) than the PRS but both feel excellent.

I think the HB has a better tone range, the coil split on the PRS is something I do not use (just does not work for me).

Both handle Hi-Gain quite well and clean up nicely.

The PRS is a touch quieter on Hi-gain... maybe...

The PRS tremolo works very well; the HB only dives. I’m not really a trem guy.

Both stay in tune very well.

Conclusion:

100% recommended.

If I knew how good this guitar is, I would never have bought the PRS.

Is it a better guitar than the PRS SE? Hard to say, they are both excellent instruments. The price makes it an easy decision though.

As described

I am very happy with the quality of this guitar. Recomeneded to anyone on a Budget. Fast shipping and as described.

Wow! Just Wow!

My Harley Benton CST 24 Black Flame arrived today and the sound and quality went well beyond expectations. It played great right out of the box and the finish is fantastic. I could not locate any defects in the workmanship. It really holds tune great.

As an older guy, who is not gong turn pro anytime soon, this is the way to go! If you are looking for a great guitar at a great price, I would highly recommend this guitar.

Wow just sums it up.

Got my guitar today. It was very well packaged. Played it right out of the box without even having to tune the strings.

I had been looking to buy a PRS SE Custom which costs $780 plus taxes. Then I came across Harley Benton guitars. At first I was skeptical but boy o boy I am glad I took the chance.

Pros: This guitar plays better than the PRS SE Custom. The finish is flawless. The coil tap feature is very useful. Finally the neck is fast and the action is just right, not too low or not to high.

Finally the price is unbeatable. I will be ordering two more.

Cons: I cannot think of any, just that once you receive the guitar, tape the frets and polish them with mothers metal polish and you will have a guitar that plays as good if not better than guitars five times the cost.

I would suggest if you are in the market for a guitar, then buy this one as you will not regret it.

Don't listen to any negative comments people have left as I can tell you I played several guitars in Guitar Center here in USA all from $200 to $2000 and can guarantee you that this was as good if not better than all of them.

Now i have a PRS :)))

This guitar looks great, plays great, feels awesome. It came in great conditions with small finishing blemishes, nothing to worry about. It plays great straight out the box. Would recommend it 10/10.

Great Guitar for any Price Point

Forget the price point. This is a great guitar by any standard. The frets were not perfect and needed some minor leveling but besides that I solid guitar that looks, plays, and sounds great. Highly recommend these fantastic guitars.

Stunning Very Affordable Guitar

Got my guitar very well packed, in less than a week after ordering it and I am nothing but amazed with the attention to detail given to an instrument in this price range.

Looks and finishing:

Absolutely stunning! Book matched flame top burst from black to gray (in my case). The one advertised had a brown transparent wood back and neck, mine is painted black. High gloss finish with no flaws. This guitar has a plus top, not plain. The binding color is pretty and well done. No blemishes whatsoever. The fret job is very well done, with no sharp frets. After adjusting, the arm is perfectly straight and the frets perfectly leveled.

Hardware:

The hardware is fine, the bridge was very easy to intonate correctly, the neck was very easy to adjust and leave perfectly straight. The string action is very low (if you like it setup like that) and without any fret buzz. The tremolo arm has a very clever thread free fixation, it does not leave its place despite what some might say. When swinging the arm in a very wide movement the guitar does get out of tune, what I would say it is expectable. The tuners are OK although one is more difficult to turn than the other 5. The guitar came with a .010 .046 D'Addario string set. No rust at all.

Electronics

The Roswell LAF pickups are OK, not the sharpest tools in the shed, but they do their job. The neck pickup lacks a bit of definition, but nothing too serious. The pots work well and splitting the coils really changes sound, especially if you do it with clean tones.

The guitar weights around 3,5kg, I consider it light. There is definitely room for improvement if you intend to use the guitar as a base for modifications. If you don't, you won't be disappointed! In fact, I thing you'll be in love! Guess I was lucky with this one! I totally recommend it! Have fun!!!!

Great PRS style guita

great looking guitar and the pickups are decent, I have already the same pickups in 3 HB, so I know them very well. The only minus was a little imperfection on the finish close to the neck join with the body. I personally think that this guitar can easily compete with an SE PRS.

Exellent Guitar

Beautiful guitar finish and build quality are excellent. Played surprisingly well out of the box. But will need a set up. Overall

I could not be happier.