Harley Benton CST-24T P90 Black Flame 5-stars Reviews

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

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.

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.

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!

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.

Pro quality

Totally sold on this guitar...it arrived in 4 days and does not disappoint. Well dressed frets, quality machine heads and a monster trem block that puts a Fender to shame. It has a great sound, mellow mid volume and growls when turned up and mine has excellent build quality. Don't be put off by the low price, this guitar is worth double and treble. It's comfy to play and has a finish to die for....I have Fender and Gibson's, but I'm definitely buying more Harley Benton's.....would have given 6 stars if there was the option....no bull.

Update - 3 weeks in and it's playing in nicely. I changed the knobs for black marshmallows (speed knobs like on a Les Paul) and it looks classier....I have hard-tailed the trem unit as I don't really use it and the saddles don't scratch my hand whilst playing muted style. The wood grain and colour of the back of the guitar is stunning....overall, I'm really impressed with this guitar...and I have now ordered a swamp ash HB strat ....

Love it love it love it...........

Received earlier this week. Absolutely love it. Just getting settled in with it. Great tones and a nice guitar all around.

The only niggle I have Is that on the bridge pickup the bottom three strings do not cantrally cross the pick up pole pieces (they are offset by quite a bit). I have 5 other guitars and none of them show this offset. This is my first HB guitar and I like everything about it EXCEPT this. Not sure if it affects the sound in any way ???

VERY WELL BUILT GUITAR

I bought this guitar to expand my sound palette.

I've never tried a guitar of this price that was built and sounded like this.

Frets were perfect, finish was stunning (expecially the back), it played and sounded great.

I'm not used to P90, these Roswell seem to me too much high output but they sound great.

First harley benton... so far

fantastic in every way.

An amazing guitar, excellent.

Incredible for the price

The good

- Beautiful, well made guitar

- Great pickups (with some room for upgrades)

- Wilkinson bridge is a great plus

- Neck is comfortable, frets are smooth

- Besides the D String, the intonation was on point

The ok

- Tuners are ok, it's the kind of tuners you find in budget guitars

- Wiring works, but could be easily improved (but I wouldn't bother unless it would stop working or if I changed the pickups)

The bad

- The nut is catching on the B String when I use the tremolo

It is a great guitar, plays nice, sounds good, looks incredible and is comfortable.

The issues are so small and can be easily fixed with some pencil lead and a setup.

This is what I hoped for!

I wanted another P90, and than this model came about. No need to buy the black one and change the pickups :) When I had scratched together the money I ordered one. Reviews are good, as this one will be also.

But first:

A nasty little scratch on the back of the headstock and dirty and damaged looking fretboard startled me when unpacking. After just playing for a few hour the fretboard looks ok, even nice. Two things are important:

1 it’s so nice I played for three hours. Tuning keeps ok-ish for now, better tuners as on my old 2016 cts. Wood is more lively, like it responses more. Necks is nice for me and frets have no sharp edges. Sound is warm but present at the neck, bridge is a bit more nasal, bitey, but not too thin. Middle is more open. Good with chorus. Wilkinson trem is good as always. Looks nice ;)

2 Always play and perhaps clean first..... first view is not always the best way to judge.

Conclusion: such a nice guitar, weight and resonance of the wood will always be different, so I was lucky.

Might sell my other cst..... ** yep, sold it.

Sound is good, p90 is thicker as my singlecoil Teles and strat, bit warmer and less raunchy as my jazzmaster. Also more to my liking as the humbuckers a have and had. To me those pickups were all to “smooth”.

I will try 47 or 22 capacitors, to see what it does. It’s a bit woolly now with tone turned down. ** It became 22's. Strong lows, not woolly anymore. and us made pots. 500V and 250 T.

This CTS24-P90 looks as good as on the pictures. Even better in my house ;) Very very good.

Update 22 aug 2019: Installed nickel locking tuners a while back. Easy tuning and better looks ;). Gave nut some attention for smooth string action. Such a beautiful and nice guitar! Dynamics AND fast player ;) .

Update may 2020: put a tonerider vintage p90 in the bridge. Because I really balanced the Roswell’s 6 screws I didn’t think the sound would be better, but man... thight! Just like I remembered the expensive les paul I once borrowed a few weeks. The neck Roswell suddenly sounds more like a semi hollow guitar, compared. Still nice and balanced. When I get my hb35-plus, I guess I’ll have to buy the neck tonerider. So when that happens I’ve upgraded the cst for €150,- and it will be (is already) so worth it.