Harley Benton CST-24T LH Ocean Flame Reviews

This guitar has no right being this good

It's an outstanding guitar. 100% recommended!

Value for Money that is...

This left-handed Harley Benton CST-24T Ocean Flame is a gem for players on a budget. The versatile sound and stunning finish make it a joy to play, and the value for money is unbeatable. Minor setup tweaks aside, it's a fantastic choice for any lefty guitarist looking for quality without compromise.

finish is beautiful

absolutely beautiful looking finish on both the body and neck, i personally prefer a matt finish neck but its still nice and doesn't cause your hand to stick to it after awhile of playing.

the sound from the Roswell pickups are pretty good for the price and the coil split is pretty good from what ive seen, I don't occasionally use it tho.

the strings included originally aren't too bad but as with all my guitars I swap out the strings straight away.

all in all this guitar is great for the price and plays and feels amazing, would 100% recommend.

Swiss army knife!!!

Th split coil does the job! Gets a wide musical paleτte covered. Even the humbucker is more bright than my 20 year old epiphoneSG! Lovely looks and sound!

Great Guitar Option for Leftys , Especially after precision setup

I'm fan of Harley Benton left handed Electrics. I have 5 and will definitely be buying another as soon as they release a CST-24T LH in Black Cherry Flame finish. ( even with having to do my own setup and tweeks )

This CST-24T LH was made in INDONESIA .

Out of the box inspection: Visual defects: Rasp file scrape over top edge of neck binding and lighter scrape on corner of fretboard at High E string, at the 1st fret, for the full width of the space between nut and fret . A 2nd visual defect was a small 1/8" brush stroke of yellow discoloration on the right side of the neck binding at the 5th fret.

Setup: Guitar was painful to play out of the box after tuning. Last fret action was 5mm on the high E and 6mm on the low E.

I lowered the last fret action to 1.2 on the high E and 1.5 on the low E.

String height at 1st fret- horrible

Measured with a digital string height gauge starting with Low E .028mm,39mm,68mm83mm95mm70mm. I got out my Chic-yu brand nut slot files and began filing the slots. In the end I had lowered the slots to: Starting with Low E: .28mm, .30mm,. 32mm,.20mm,.19mm,21mm

Neck Relief: Neck initially was dead flat, I adjusted the truss rod and added relief to .2mm

Fret ends: Nice and smooth, no fret sprouts

Fret Levelness: High spot and Low E at 10th and 22 fret ( getting buzz ) at 1.5 mm last fret action on this string.

All other frets sound clean .

Will eventually be doing a precision fret leveling as done by Sam Deeks on YOUTUBE ( Good info source ,check it out )

Note on nut filing- the nut feeling like hack sawing thru rubber, because of this, there is no controlling how deep you file ( I had to fill a few slots with CA glue and black rescue powder and let cure overnight then re-file the next day. I have a new Tusq PT6642LO going on when I figure out the best method to cut through the gloss clear coat the HB sprays up against 3 sides of Graphite nut.

Tremelo: I dont normally use one, and have not tested how much it affects staying in tune, but if I have noticed the bridge would benefit from a slight flat milled into the surface just below the bridge. An observation I noticed was the high E saddle had to sit right down onto the bridge surface in order to achieve 1.2mm High E last fret action.

Summary: Would I buy another Harley Benton-Yes

Is this CST-24T worth $230 US Yes

Bottom line: None of the defects I found were impossible to correct.

About me: I work as a Quality Technician , getting ready to retire soon and enjoy playing my collection of Harley Bentons and Epiphones

WOW!!

So nice..... The look! The playability

Harley Benton CST--24T

This guitar is like getting two guitars in one. A guitar with single coils, and humbuckers. I have watched lots of reviews for this guitar. They say it's a good guitar for beginners. I've played very expensive guitars that don't play better or sound better. In fact some were inferior in sound and playability. The reviews were making there judgment on brand and price.This guitar is a good for any level player unless there guitar snobs Do yourself a favor buy one of these Harley Benton CST-24T I'm happy after months of enjoyment.

great guitar !

way better then I expected ' set up great ' no flaws ' highly recomended .

Amazing Guitar

Works superb! Very nice colour!

Excellent value and a standout guitar

I'm delighted with the Harley Benton CST-24T and I think the features it offers is excellent value for the price.

Firstly, it really is a looker in the blue flame with different shades of blue according to the light. There is one minor imperfection in the varnish but I only spotted this after three months of using it so really not a big deal.

The sound from is great and the split coil feature is very useful to get lots of different tones.

My only niggles would be that I needed to tweak the set-up a bit as the strings were set very high, but this was easily fixed. The volume dial can also suddenly jump when you're maxing it.

I have not put down the guitar since starting to use it though, very happy overall!

Cheap but great

I wanted to buy a regular 6 string after using a pretty high end 8 string guitar, compared to it, despite some frets on the bottom of the neck, the overall build is great and the sound is really good as well.

For the price, pretty outstanding product.

Incredible for the price.

When i first received this guitar, it was already set up correctly and had no blemishes whatsoever. The frets were well rounded off well and it had no sharp fret ends. It sounds great as well, and for the price i dont think you could find anything better than this especially with the specs that it has! Absolutely wonderful.

Value.

This guitar will encourage me to be a better musician although I should probably stop admiring it?s gorgeous looks and actually practice, 5*.

Great value guitar

Got this guitar this morning from my postman, I've been playing all day since. So happy with it. Played great out of the box, amazing tones and sounds (six selections to pick from) Machine heads are fine and work great, the finish is excellent and its a very well balanced guitar. It feels just right in my hands ans there was no getting to know you period as there is with some instruments. This is my second Harley Benton electric guitar bringing my total guitar number up to 20. For some reasons I play only my HB guitars at the moment and I have a lot of expensive high end stuff. There is something intriguing about HB guitars I haven't figured it out yet, but its a good feeling. As a left handed player I find that the HB selection of guitars cover all styles of guitars which is great. Do I need another guitar? probably not but I presume I will and it will be a Harley Benton. Highly recommended.

Great, not perfect.

Great guitar, amazing clean bridge tone, stays well in tune.

Had some fret buzz and fret wire was not polished. Luther fixed both (~45 EUR in my city).

Binding is truly ugly (scratched too much around the first frets), also in my eyes it doesn't complement the blue color of the guitar, I think they should have done a different binding color for the Ocean Flame.

PRS eat your heart out!

I'm a Leftie, and I've had this version for 2 weeks. The colour has a hint of turquiose, but still is beautiful. As others have said, the finishing is not quite as good as a £1,000 guitar, but, hey, for £200 who's complaining; from a yard away it looks fantastic. I have gigged it, and it looks great in the photos taken then. The neck is made of 5 pieces of wood; three for the main length, a scarf joint at around the 2nd fret, and a piece to make up the heel. I had akready tried the PRS SE Custom. That had a 3 piece neck, and the finish and sound wasn't worth the extra £800 in my opinion. I already have the Paradise Flame CST24 LH, which I use the vibrato, and for this one, I have blocked the tremolo cavity to make it a hardtail.

It arrived in tune (!) with a straight neck, but the frets needed a polishing up, as the strings were scraping on them when bending. I also carefully lowered the action at the nut using the proper files (don't try it with a bread knife!) and it plays very fast.

One disappointment is the tone pot. It's either all on or full off, no in-between tonalities, so I'll have to change it. The tuning pegs are not great quality, but they keep it in tune. So if you changed them, and fitted a better tone knob, you'd have an exceptional guitar.

If you have a problem with the name on the headstock, then get over it. PRS eat your heart out.

Amazing Value for Money

I really cannot say enough good comments about the CST-24T LH. I fell in love as soon as I removed the lid from the box. The color on the flame is stunning. The guitar was set up pretty well out of the box and even came in tune after the trip all the way to the midwest of the US. It sounds and plays extremely well. The neck is very thin, which is a big bonus to those of us with smaller hands. All of the reviews you see online are completely correct. I have found a few small areas under the clear where it looks like they didn't clean it well enough before they shot the clear coat. There are a few areas on the binding that didn't get scraped well enough before the clear also. However, this is nitpicking folks. This guitar is phenomenal. For $250 shipped to my front door, this is the steal of the century.

PRS alternative

The alternative to PRS.

The overall impression is good. The guitar is well shielded, configured fine, she is beautiful, very comfortable neck, but the sound is not like the PRS (I have it), not enough low frequencies. The largest cause irritation and the tuning machines and nut.

Advantages:

price,

comfort,

exterior

Disadvantages:

terrible tuners and a nut,

drops the temolo arm,

not enough low frequencies

I do not regret the money spent

Really good buy

I bought this already owning six "famous" electric guitars but wanted to see if the Internet reviews (all positive) were true. They are. This Harley Benton is beautifully finished, well set up and actually has a quality vibe about it. The pots have a firmness to them that is missing on many modern guitars. The sound quality is impressive, the frets are well finished and its overall appearance is of a quality instrument. I had a gig the day after it was delivered and was confident enough to take it and use it live. There is one area that I needed to be cautious about as being a 24 fret guitar the neck placement is marginally different to what I'm used to so needed some care when moving fast around the neck. Overall very impressed.