Harley Benton CST-24T P90 Ocean Flame Reviews

Cannot get better for the money

Decent guitar for the price , came in perfect condition right out of the box. Just tune it and ready to play right away! Will be getting more harley bentons for sure!!

Superb guitar

Buy this guitar its a steal for the cost. Will definatily buy another Harley .

A very good instrument.

Good sound and comfortable fretboard. Good quality at an affordable price.

CST P90

Amazing guitar,plays and sounds like it should have cost way more than it does!

prs style

low quality , stainless steel frets were sticking out a bunch , p90 pickups sound like crap , still working it to get it playable

My favourite guitar right now

Love this piece of kit from Harley Benton. Definitely my favourite guitar right now! Quality build and the sound from those Roswells is unreal.

Fantastic looking and sounding

Looking for something in this body shape for this value and with these features this is difficult to beat.

With P90s to add to the collection, it stands out in all the right ways in terms of sound and versatility. The Ocean Flame finish is even better in-person and makes it difficult to put down.

Add on stainless steel frets and the quality of the overall finish, it's a fantastic overall guitar, well worth the money and more!

Beautiful Guitar!!

Harley Benton does it again! A+++

Awesome

Love the quality and build. After a year of not being played was still intune. P90 PUs are as good sounding as my PRS P90s. Great value

Good as they come

This guitar played perfectly right out of the box. It needed no adjustments. It stays in tune and plays smoothly. I may even buy it again in another color.

Fantastic guitar

This is the 24 fret guitar with p90s. High quality body and neck, hardware works great, and pickups sound fine. The veneer top has a beautiful grain. The instrument plays well and is comfortable and balanced.

Great Mod Platform

Was 10/10 after modding it to an inch of it's life and than it came ALIVE. #overkill mod with Bare Knuckle True Grit P90 Set, Gotoh Locking Tuners, Graphtech Nut

Punches well above its weight

Had a PRS SE custom and didn’t like it. Stayed away from PRS double cut type guitars until saw reviews of this HB. Love P90’s too. Quality build, neck feels great and term works and stays in tune. Love the color and flame!

Amazing for the money

I bought this as a back up to my tele ( P90 at bridge). The tele needs work. I don't think I'm going to go back to the tele because the CST 24T is so good. I read a lot of reviews on this guitar and took a chance that any fret issues could be sorted but there are no issues with it really. I have ordered a set of locking tuners for it but the originals are fine. I'm seriously considering ordering the humbucker model. Unbeatable value

Great for the price!

A touch heavy and a few overlooked minor details, but at this price point this guitar is awesome! Super low action. Easy to play. Overall well done!

Gobsmacked

It's a bit of a crap shoot with Harley Bentons, and just before ordering this guitar I returned one, but if you get a good one it will compare favorably to a guitar 3 times the price.

This CST24t P90 is wonderful. I can't find any flaws and it arrived set up nicely....better than most Fenders or Gibsons I've bought. It's very light weight and the pickups sound great. I've had many dozens of guitars over the years including Fender, Gibson, PRS and Gretsch and this little Harley Benton rates very well in comparison.

A keeper for sure.

Mod guitar

I am a guitar player for over 25 jears and i wanted a p90 guitar.

There is not much available with p90's and a decent (not gibson like)

headstock and a tremolo, or you have to pay like more than 2000 euro's.

So i bought this Harley Benton instead.

First impression is that the wood is beautiful and high quality.

The tuners are not that nice. (they suck).

The p90's provided do not sound that great, not the sound i was expecting,

they barely make the sound of a p90.

The guitar also has a few high frets so it buzzes and rattles.

And o my god the tremolo wont stay in tune no matter wath i tried.

Even flatting it out does not solve the problems. The tremolo is unusable in my case.

So my conclusion: the wood is great, but everything else sucks.

What to do???? Modify it like there is no tomorrow.

I removed everything exept the wood (obvious) and the nut. All the rest is gone. I noticed that the pots used are 250K. For a P90 it should be 500K.

I put in some shaller M6 tuners, Bare knuckle boot camp P90's.

All new electronics: 500k CTS pots, 0,022 cap, switchcraft switch, and braided wire, and a CTS output jack.

Also a shaller 2 point vintage tremolo was added.

I did a fretjob and polish and put it all together.

And there you go, a guitar better than a PRS, with the options i chose.

I am not a guitar tech. Although i do the fretwork on all my guitars and minor repairs myself, this is my first "real" modding project.

I had no real problems with the installation of the parts.

I bought a 25 euro soldering station and leared from youtube how to do 50's style wiring.

The installation of the tremolo was the most scary.

But hey, if i fucked it up, its a 260 euro guitar and i would have bought a

new one. I measured a lot and used painters tape, a ruler and a pencil to see where it should be. I used a mill to enlarge the cavity, it was to small for the new tremolo.

During the removal of the old tremolo i noticed that the 6 screwholes are

not in line, they go up and down 4-5mm. that is why the original trem did

not stayed in tune.

The guitar is great now. It sounds much better and plays like a breeze.

The tremolo stays in tune +-2 cents. Intonation is not a problem because i measured a lot.

So i am happy with it. I learned a lot during the process.

But what are the costs for this project?

260 euro for the guitar,

189 euro for the pickups,

138 euro for the tremolo,

118 euro for the tuners,

77 euro for the electronics+ shipping

This is a total of 782 euro.

You can get a gretch semi accoustic with a bigsby for this money, but it has a Gibson style headstock so you will have tuning problems.

There are no other decent guitars with p90's a tremolo and a decent headstock available for this kind of money.

I know it is a lot of money but i would do it again. It was fun to do and i learned a lot.

Now i have the guitar i want, the guitar Harley Benton should have made

intstead of the stock one.

Look no further for a P90 PRS style guitar on a budget!

Fit / finish and quality, this guitar is simply amazing for the price!

Anyone interested in getting into a P90 guitar for a fraction of the cost look no further! The Roswell P90's sound great!

There's nothing I would replace on this guitar, but you can if you're a "modder" and would like to experiment or up-tick certain areas, but it's completely un-necessary. Some might want locking tuning pegs...

Or some might want to replace the bridge pickup with a humbucker that fits. I might do that if I find myself wanting more crunch since I don't have a lot of guitars in my shop. But again, it's un-necessary at this point for me.

Note: I'm a bass guitar luthier and know what it takes to build / finish an instrument.

Lovely guitar.

No cosmetic issues found.

The tremolo was set non floating, which was easily fixed. Nut would benefit from lowering a tad, but is still playable.

Tuners are adequate, but could be bettered.

Lovely guitar.

Texas-size Love for This Guitar

This is the second Harley Benton I've had shipped here to San Antonio, Texas. The first was a TE-40 Tele-style. Nice instrument, but nothing compared to this one. I love the P90s. The guitar itself is gorgeous. Came out of the box undamaged and perfectly set-up - ready to play despite the fact that it had to endure shipment from Europe. Action was low, no fret sprout, no buzzing frets, decent tuners, intonation good. I've been playing for nearly 60 years and currently own over 30 electrics, so I know good. I bought a Gibson Les Paul 50s gold top at the same time I bought this one. I'm not saying the CST-24T P90 is as good as the Les Paul (it's not), but I find myself playing it about as much as the LP primarily due to the different sound of the P90s. Of the two HBs I've purchased, I'm impressed with Harley Benton's quality and playability. I also bought an $850 Epiphone '61 SG at the same time I bought this Harley Benton and the Gibson Les Paul, and the HB had much better fret work than the Epi. Even with international shipping charges, Harley Benton guitars are a great value considering the quality of the guitar.