Harley Benton CST-24T P90 Black Flame Reviews

Beautiful guitar, but....

The guitar I received had sadly been built a little wonky! The nut was too far toward the high E and the bridge was also too far over, this meant the high E was too close to the edge of the fretboard and it made it uncomfortable to play. I had to return it due to this problem which was a real shame as it looked and sounded great.

Hard to beat

Three weeks now since taking delivery of this guitar, so time for a review. First up build quality and finishing are pretty much as good as you would expect from a guitar five times the price. But at this price level it's the final touches that you are likely to need to do yourself, so a fret polish, lemon-oil the fretboard, tweak the set-up (didn't need much) and you are away. My one complaint - the guitar seems to have been assembled by the Hulk on a bad day, By which I mean the screws were tightened to within an inch of their lives. The neck claw was screwed all the way in to the wood, making the trem bridge unmovable - and as for the bridge why oh why oh why does the trem arm tension screw have to be so inaccessible? Sort it out Trevor! The pickups sound great - always preferred P90s to humbuckers, and these are really gnarly and mean when you crank them. I've actually replaced the tuners for locking types and the top nut with an ivory graphite one, which I think looks smarter with the neck binding. I'm thinking of adding a second volume pot, or a single blend pot with master volume, but that's a job for another day.

Gorgeous looks, great playability and superb value for money

Delivered ahead of the quoted time and in perfect condition. Out of the box the finish of the guitar, given the price point, was excellent. Flawless paint job, no fret spout and a great fretboard, one of the best I’ve ever played. Plugged in, no disappointments there. Plays and sounds much better than the rice point would suggest. Recommended.

Totally great

I love the color ,the guitar,and it sound good, the quality is best, highly recommend

Wow

Very good guitar. Prices are incredibly affordable. Needs set up but overall very impressed

Good quality instrument

Very good P90 loaded guitar, classic P90 punchy sound. The pickups are "reverse-wound, reverse-polarity", so no hum in middle position on high gain settings. Quality is fine, except for the tuners that did not hold the tune at all. Easy change, though. In total very fine guitar.

Fun P90 guitar with a nice shape

Got a made in Vietnam model. It has a bit thinner neck than the Indonesia CST24 with humbuckers, and the frets are not as big.

The pickups are great, they are really whats setting this guitar apart from other ones with similar price. If you are looking for a P90 guitar this or the singlecut 450 are probably your best bet.

Color came a bit darker than on images, but it looks great.

All in all a nice comfy neck and a good sound for the money.

Replace the tuners and you got a nice looking nice sounding guitar for cheap.

Surprisingly fast

Opened, played, enjoyed

Will buy many more

Expectations far exceeded!

An absolute bargain - don't overthink this, just get it.

I will upgrade a few bits and pieces here and there, but I knew this before I purchased the guitar. Tuners & the nut are fine as is, but I just prefer better.

Playable right away - set up quite good but a few tweaks to get it just right needed.

Exceeded expectations and most certainly not disappointed!

Due to circumstances over Covid-19, last year I had to sell my beloved Ibanez JS1 (one of the first 500 made). It was a beautiful instrument and probably the finest axe I will ever own. Someone got a bargain and I wish them well with it. With finances a little better this year, and missing not having an electric, I wanted an inexpensive instrument to futz around with some ideas and get playing again. Having always gone for Strats in years gone by the JS1 Floy Rose wasn't my favourite personally. I also always liked single-coil clean tones but didn't want a Strat neck after having the Ibanez for so long and thought I'd take a gamble on the CST24T P90. I reasoned that as long as the neck is okay I can always upgrade hardware as finances allow.

Well. The CST24T P90 has come as a complete surprise. It arrived detuned by a semitone or so, brought it up to pitch and the intonation is pretty much bang on! It most certainly doesn't look like a ~£200 instrument and played fine straight out of the box. The pickups sound good to me, pots are nice and firm. The nut wasn't cut very neatly but fitted correctly with no snagging. The vibrato seems fine and am confident it will float okay when I get around to it. The tuners do their job and are the only thing I am considering upgrading at this point but will do for now. There were a few 'imperfections' on the binding but no big deal. The JS1 had its 'flaws' as well. In fact, every instrument I have ever owned has no matter the price!

The frets could do with a dressing but nothing major and I wouldn't have been disappointed if the tuners/trem needed replacing immediately but this will more than do its job for a good while which is a result. An absolute bargain. Pleased as punch!

This guitar is unreal

I cannot believe just how good this guitar is; I us it purely for my own purposes - I don't gig or perform and I am so blown away by the quality of this instrument. Fit and finish is amazing with no issues cosmetically or mechanically; the sound from the Roswell P90s is stunning. I honestly cannot find anything wrong with this guitar. It stays in tune, the tremolo bridge is stable. It's as close to perfect as I have yet found.

Okay-ish

First things first: I receive my product almost 1.5 months later. Maybe it was because of the pandemic, I don't know...

Guitar finish quality: It is not a top-notch finish. It has grayish tiger stripes on the top, but not even AA quality in there. Yellow stripes (binding) around the body are not even and there are some blemishes here and there... It can't be seen from a distance but from the player's point of view, they sure look ugly.

Pick-ups quality: okay, there is nothing wrong with it! I am very pleased with them. Very bright, punchy, warm sound; right in between a Gibson and a Fender sound.

Neck quality: the fretboard surely could've been better. The binding that surrounding the neck has some hollow points in between, and there are some minor cracks on the neck wood. It can be fixed by some gluing and applying some oil. The nut is a very, very ugly, cheap-looking plastic so it must be changed!

TL;DR: so overall, I don't have any regrets but surely I won't consider buying this guitar if I've known better...

PRACHTIG INSTRUMENT. (alleen een beetje langs de zware kant)

Unbelievably awesome guitar!

Unbelievably awesome guitar! First time Harley buyer. I can’t believe how good this guitar plays. It came set up perfectly friends with perfect color was completely awesome I just can’t put this thing down I love it I highly recommend these guitars great job Harley Benton.

Good Guitar but needed some work...

This guitar showed up a few weeks ago and I was instantly stoked at the overall package. The finish is gorgeous, the neck is glossy but quite playable, and the pickups sound pretty good through my Fender Blues Jr.

Once I got a little time on it, I realized there were a few issues that it shouldn't have with it being a new guitar, regardless of price point. The nut was cut so low that I had to get pliers to pull the low E string out of it and all four of the wrapped strings (EADG) were set so low in the nut that there were big issues with tuning stability. Several frets were high and needed some work to get it playable and all of the frets needed to be polished. There were a few that needed to be filed on the ends due to fret sprout, but I live in the mountains with low humidity, so I expect that to happen on most guitars. The bridge was almost maxed out on height on every string to be at a playable string height across the fretboard. Finally, the truss rod needed to be adjusted about 1/2 turn to get the neck straight, but that could again be due to my area. There are a few areas of the finish that aren't perfect, but I don't care about that so I won't address it.

Overall, this is a decent guitar and once I replaced the nut and gave it a decent setup it's enjoyable to play. No issues with the electronics and I'm overall happy with my purchase, but I don't think I'll buy a Harley Benton guitar again.

Well made black guitar.

I already had a CST24T Paradise flame with twin Roswell humbuckers. This is supposedly a black flame P90 CST24T. It is really an opaque black guitar with a bit of transparent flame on the front. The flame competes with the usual finger prints on black guitars. I hoped the finish would be more like my charcoal black semi hollow CST-24HB.

The neck is the usual fast "Nice Slim Neck" and more so than on the CST24T and apart from the nature of the finish is the thing I like the least about it.

The quality of the construction and indeed of the finishing is as good as that on guitars costing three times as much. Its not light but not very heavy either. The balance between the P90s is perfect. If only the neck were more full in the hand it would be the perfect jazz/blues guitar.

Excellent for the price

A great guitar for its price. I’ve put new locking machine heads on it and it’s a lot better. Ho Ann are an excellent company with great customer care. We always know we will get quality from you. Everything I purchase from you is for my husband so truthfully he should be writing the feedback but we always talk about everything so I just do the typing!

Fret buzz

Pretty cool guitar, looks really great, plays well. Sadly, there was significant fret buzz that would not go away after changing the action.

Arrived today - first impressions very positive

I've never owned a PRS-style guitar before, and never a guitar with P90s either, so this was something of a gamble for me. The reviews from others (and some excellent YouTube videos) convinced me that the craftsmanship of the guitar would be solid, and having had it in my hands for the past few hours and having had a close inspection, I would agree.

I did have to slightly adjust the truss rod and lower the action, but that's more about personal preference than anything.

Two things worthy of note though - I was really disappointed in the finish on the back of the body/neck. The photos imply that it's translucent, with the mahogany grain showing through with a slightly brown tint. The one that arrived today is solid black on the back of body/neck, which has really detracted the asthaetics for me.

The second thing is that the guitar was listed as "Available Immediately" when I purchased it on the 1st, but it wasn't dispatched until the 6th and then it took 6 days to get here. Not a major issue, and I appreciate that we're living in unprecedented times, but not ideal to have a guitar travelling for a week in a carboard box.

Would I recommend the higher priced Harley Bentons - absolutely. Would I say that this guitar is worth the money - on the evidence of today's arrival, I'd say it's worth more than the asking price. I've had many G&L's over the years and I have a 2008 Fender USA Standard Strat, so I'm used to playing guitars that have been well put together. I'm looking to get hold of one of the Fusion T series in the future, as they look to be great value for money, but as for my first PRS-style P90 guitar, it's overall a positive start.

Cracking Guitar

Whilst not quite as flamey as i had hoped for this guitar is growing on me.Love the sound and playability. Awesome.