Harley Benton CST-24T P90 Ocean Flame Reviews

Glorious

Versatile, beautifully made and a joy for even a sausage fingered buffoon like myself to play. The finish is perfect and the setup was great out of the box. Trying to find negatives and all I can come up with is the tuners are a little lumpy but that's it. Very happy.

Awesome quality, regardless the price.

Everything is perfect. The only downside is a that you have to use the middle position on very heavy distortion, otherwise there is noise from the p 90's.

Awesome quitar in any other case..

An excellent all rounder

I have always bought and played traditional style guitars, however, due to the P 90 pickups, which I have been wanting to try, I decided to buy this guitar.

Firstly, the buying experience itself was excellent, along with fast delivery. The instrument is a looker, and I also love the shape. The sound is so good, has a great biting tone once you set your amp and volume & tone controls. It’s unlike other instruments I own, in both looks and tone, therefore, it’s a perfect purchase. This is my current go to guitar as it is so versatile. It also stays in tune very well. The only thing I have changed are the control knobs, as this is a modern shape, so I’ve swapped out the ‘tele style’ knobs for some spare modern style ones that I had.

I actually cannot fault anything, from quality, price, playability. This is a bargain for the price, I’m really pleased with it, very impressed!

Awesome

Fantastic guitar for peanuts, great tonality in the p90s with quite some bark if turned up.

One high fret which needs sorting, but nothing comes close at this price point.

Beautiful looking to boot!

Awesome guitar for this price

First of all, this guitar looks very beautiful, this color is Just amazing. The sound of guitar is also very good both on clean and overdrive channels, especially for this money. Guitar has a nice tremolo system, that won't put your strings out of tune. The tuners are nice and accurate. Volume and tone knobs are The one flaw I've noticed, some frets are not polished very vell, but against the rest of advantages the guitar has, it's just trivia

Remarkable Guitar for Price & Value

Very impressed, a great looking and well built guitar - plays well and was well setup on delivery - intonation was even bang on which is rare. Sounds excellent - I did upgrade to locking machine heads, but for the price I really can't complain about that.

Very good guitar can’t say I loved it at first but the more I use the better I am liking it again few minor issues but what do you expect at that price would purchase again if he’d too

Very Impressed

I was looking for a P90 guitar. I have bought several Harley Benton´s already and have been very pleased with all of my purchases. After looking at a few options I was intrigued with the PRS style guitar with P90 pick ups and they sound great.

Any guitar I purchase I always take to get set up to my local shop regardless of brand so I do recommend you spend the extra few bucks to get this set up but no complaints from me. Great purchase.

Sounds like it should cost more.....

However arrived with cracks on the neck and head had damage as well, been waiting all week for for it to be picked up for a replacement. Customer service isn't the best , very all you just have to phone UPS to arrange pick up. Sounds easy , four calls later still not not sure when it's going back .........not impressed

Stunned again !

This thing is no fluke. The P90s are awesome (quiet too), the trem works, and the tones blew away those of my big brand name guitars. It handles overdrive like a champ. The online photos don't do it justice...the color is lighter and more beautiful in person. Tuning stability is good if you don't abuse the trem. The neck is comfortable and fast. Set up was good out of the box too. This guitar has pushed me to getting the CST 24T. Well done HB.

disapointment

This guitar is disappointment - my worst guitar I play less than others. The price is not everything - quality of guitar is most important and it lags from squirer, epiphone, fender: tuners are crap, pickups cheap chineeze (changed one to gibson P90), needed to play around with bridge as it was resonating, some of frets resonates and not holding sustain. Most of the reviews of this guitar probably are paid. Do not buy and waist your money.

Amazing

Excellent value Strat type guitar. The build quality is amazing and plays great straight out of the box. Very gigabel guitar. I've just purchased my 2nd Harley Benton.

Excellent PRS style guitar

I already own a CST24-T with humbuckers and I liked that so much I bought this guitar with P90's. They are both excellent PRS style guitars. I am a professional guitar teacher and performer and would recommend these guitars. Fretwork was perfect. The only upgrade I made was to install locking tuners, which wasn't necessary, but helps balance the instrument better and helps tuning stability if you're using the trem a lot. The trem is hard tailed, but can be adjusted to be floating. Stability is good. The pickups are excellent, and give a clear defined sound. The neck is very comfortable, and the action can be adjusted to be very low. These guitars are well made, I would use them live, and they are as good as more expensive models (and in some cases better!). They look great, sound great and are a joy to play.

Just a wow!

Experienced guitar player here, I used to have a Fender MIM Tele series, but lemme tell you something.

The CST is not kidding around. Build quality is just awesome. No sharp edges on the frets, finish is a glossy perfect shine, the P90s are warm and (surprisingly silent) under high gain, so good job Rosswell!

Grab some steel wool, dress up those frets, adjust your height, and you're good to go!

A bit of history, I changed countries recently and bringing over the Tele from back home proved to be more than a hassle, so I opted out to grab something new but affordable. I was almost about to buy a PRS SE Custom 24, but a last minute decision (and the 30 day money back guarantee) got me curious about Harleys.

The best decision I've even made in my life! With the remainder of my budget, I grabbed a Yamaha THR30II wireless, whereas with the PRS I would've had to get something like a Line6!

Could not be more happier. Keep it up HB, you've made my day and my life in my new country a lot better!

Superb

The guitar arrived in perfect condition, very well protected, playable straight from the box. Beautiful flame top, lovely low action with very good intonation. Excellent range of tones, clear and ringing to warm and smooth with everything in between.

Smooth fret ends, straight neck, very playable radius.

This is the first guitar I've ever tried that feels so right in my hands, encouraging me to play.

The guitar sits well on a strap, no neck dive adding to it's playability. Tuning is stable, even with the tremelo block as long as you don't go mad with it. I'll be putting 8 gauge strings on to help with bending, but the fitted strings are very good, just my personal preference.

As a novice player, I couldn't ask for more, just superb.

A thing of beauty but some little manufacturing flaws in my example

There is no doubt that this guitar offers genuine value for money. It looks and feels much better than its asking price would lead someone to expect and in that regard I am very happy with it.

The tuners though are not great. A couple of mine do very little and then all of a sudden far too much but that's something that can be easily remedied. When everything else is good, it is well worth doing at some point if a bit of use doesn't improve matters. The neck is straight, there are no sharp fret ends, no buzzing and the entire thing feels like a precision produced item. You could easily spend a lot more elsewhere and receive a lot less in return I would imagine.

Unfortunately however, I am not one of the many people who received a perfect, blemish free guitar. During manufacture, the upper horn on the headstock had a distinctive chip knocked off and this was simply stained and lacquered. It is irritating as it is most noticeable when playing. There is also a smallish spot on the back where the blue stain was accidentally rubbed or scratched off i.e. there is no colour remaining other than a dark grey undercoat, and this too was lacquered over. My guitar would probably qualify as a B Grade to be honest and if you're fussy like me, it does detract from the overall purchase especially at full price. It's a pity but all things considered and these little manufacturing flaws aside, it certainly does look and feel like a much more expensive guitar.

This is my second Harley Benton guitar; the previous much cheaper one being absolutely perfect hence my purchase of the CST-24 P90, and I believe I will certainly buy another model in the not too distant future. I don't think that their guitars can be beaten for the price asked. They are most definitely very well constructed.

Brill guitar

Looks and sounds great. Definitely recommend this guitar

Great value guitar

Straight from the box the guitar played nicely.

Because of the lockdown I have not gigged for 3 months but usually I gig regularly and I thought this would be an interesting buy.

The only issues were the nut and the tremolo unit. The nut was cut too tightly and 2 of the strings stuck in the slots and the edges of the nut were VERY sharp. 2 minutes with a fret file and some nut sauce and it was perfect - and the tremolo problem was fixed as well (stiff action probably because the nut slots were too tight). Now it's fab. Pick ups are a little bit edgy (compared to my other P90 guitars which are all Gibsons and very expensive!). Overall I think it's unbeatable for the price and better finished and set up than several other guitars which I have purchased recently (including an Epiphone and a Gibson). A great buy.

Better Than expected

Really blown away. Has me looking at more more more !!!

Excellent, especially for the price

I am a beginner guitarist and was looking for something that was not too expensive to keep at the office as a secondary guitar for practicing during lunch time.

This guitar is put together extremely well and has no blemishes or defects out of box. It is an extremely attractive guitar and the blue FMT is very eye-catching. I assume it is a PRS clone. There is no pick guard but I think it looks better without one.

It was well set up out of the box with only a basic tuning required before I could play it. It sounds good unplugged which is how I expect to play it at the office most of the time. The P90s sound good both with and without distortion. Selecting the Neck, Bridge or both pickups had obvious impact on the tone. The controls are noticeably responsive for both volume and tone.

My minor knock is with the typical lesser quality tuning pegs on less expensive guitars. They work fine but having a higher quality guitar as well, I can feel the difference in easy it is to get a string dialed in. It might be worth an upgrade down the road.

I appreciate the neck shape and thickness a lot. My hands are not gigantic and this one feels right for me. I am still too new for soloing anything real so I cannot comment on speed or the like.

All in all, I am very happy with this purchase and feel I could recommend this guitar to someone looking for a decent practice guitar. I don't perform, not expect to, so I cannot say how it would be on stage.