Harley Benton DC-580 CH Vintage Series Reviews

Very happy with this purchase. FOr the price point, you cannot do better than this guitar. Second HB guitar that I own, and both have been just great. Neck is perfect, no complaints. Plays and sounds very good, again, for this money it is not beatable. Love the look and feel. Fit and finish are flawless. Could use upgraded tuners and pots, but the ones on it are fine, I will not be changing mine. Pickup sounds great clean or with overdrive. Very pleased..........Thanks HB!

Stop Nit Picking Guys

We All Know that Pickups, Strings Machine Heads Knobs ETC. Can be improved so Go And Spend 3 Grand Then. and there will be something you don't like on that one as well. Trust me I know , That's the way Guitars are, we are all different people with different Tastes in things. some people like low action others High, some people like a chunky neck, others don't, All im saying is for the money guys you cant beat it. If you have a few skills in setting a guitar up then theres no problem ive been playing guitar for 40 years. I Bought this for Home use Only In My Studio and was very impressed. Straight out of the box the Action was very good, But I did tweak it a little as I like really Low Action. Id like to see a Smaller Neck some Day on these Guitars about a 40mm Nut with a Softer C Shape profile ( That's just my preference ) The Quality of the build of the guitar was Insanely Fantastic Overall for me Just Fantastic value for the money.

A great SG style guitar

I am not a big fan of SG style guitars, but I feel that I have to own one. I bought the Harley Benton DC-580 CH to replace a Gibson SG I had sold, and for my use this works just as good as the Gibson.

This guitar was perfectly set up straight out of the box and it plays really great. It has got very low action without any string buzz. The fretwork is very good on this guitar with nice leveled frets and no sharp ends.

Because of my handsize I like the guitar necks to be a bit thicker, and this one fits me perfect. The neck is C-shaped and the thickness is close to a 59 Gibson Les Paul. The fretboard is a bit wider than the Les Paul.

The finish of this guitar is fantastic. A nice cherry colour where some wood grain is shining through.

This guitar balance really good when playing standing up as well. I have found that to be an issue on some of the SG's I have owned but this one is not neck heavy at all.

The sound of this guitar is the only thing I am not 100% happy with. I have 2 Harley Benton guitars with the vintage style humbuckers and both have a kind of sharp, and in my opinion a bit too hot sound. I assume there are ceramic magnets in the pickups so I will just swap them with some alnico 2 magnets to get a warmer sound. This is just my personal opinion but I decide to give 4 stars for the sharp sound.

I will recommend this guitar to every beginner who consider an sg-style guitar. You will get a fantastic guitar right out of the box I will also recommend this as a platform for upgrades for more seasoned players. The quality and playability is really great, and with the high quality of the build I find it a perfect guitar to upgrade to my own wishes.

All in all this is a fantastic guitar that I will recommend. I have owned a few SG-style guitars from Gibson and Epiphone, and in my opinion the Harley Benton is a better choice than Epiphone when it comes to quality and playability.

Considering the price of the Harley Benton together with it's quality I will say that this is a no-brainer.

It is a great guitar

I ordered this guitar, because I wanted to try Harley Benton after so many good reviews on the internet.

I wasn't disappointed. I love the finish, the color and the design, every aspect of it. I like the neck joint, the controls, the roseacer fretboard. I love that the jack is on the bottom, not on the front. The controls are versatile. It wasn't neckheavy. The action was a bit high, but the guitar was well set-up intonationwise. I could lower the strings by 2-3 mm and it was still not buzzing, but the playability improved a lot. I could set the intonation too. The fret ends are ok, but the tuners are the worst I've ever experienced. They kept the guitar in tune, but they have a big play and was hard to tune the guitar. I am not the fan of the neck, it is a bit thick and the feel of the lack annoyed me a bit. I think it is only personal preference thing. I am a stratocaster-type guy. I actually sent back the guitar, because I didn't feel playing it, but all-in-all I recommend it to anyone, who likes SG-s. The price is amazing and it is a great starter guitar. I already had some higher quality guitars and this one couldn't make it to the favourites. I really wanted to try an SG, just to see if I'm liking it, but it turned out that I don't, but if you do, I recommend it.

Decent double-cut guitar

This is very good for the price. Here are some general observations. My opinions are subjective, they're simply what I've found with what I received.

Fretwork seems very good. No sharp fret ends or sprout. The binding is very neatly done

Body appearance- the painter is darker and a littlee duller than the web photos. The finis is slightly transparent. The Body is three piece and because of the transparent finish you can see a centre piece with very different wood grain. It looks ok but might bother some. It would be better imho to make the paint opaque unless the grain/matching is attractive. But again that's just an opinion.

Sounds- neck pickup is warm and pretty fat. Not as good as the Roswells in my other HB guitars, but this guitar is 139 euro!!

Tuners are ok. They work but are not very smooth or precise. They will be replaced eventually.

Comfort. It exhibits pronounced neck dive. I play sitting as I'm a hobby player. but you may not.

Nut:- well seated, will need a little filing as there are plastic burrs left in some of the slots. No biggy.

Overall:- I bought it to mess around with. I don't own any high end guitars, my most expensive is a Harley Benton Fusion T (299 euro) which is markedly better quality than this guitar, but that's ot be expected. I will use it for occasional use in my garden office, some blues noodling, rock power chords and won't worry too much if I damage it.

Good for:- a complete beginner- a great starter guitar. Maybe as a living room guitar. With better tuners and pickups you could probably use it on stage, but I can't comment specifically because I'm not in that world.

Overall a very nice guitar for the money. It costs 139 euro and has a set-in neck.

Everything I'd hoped it would be

Feels terrific to play and looks flawless.

This is an outstanding value.

My first guitar!

I love this guitar - great sounds, Great quality, Great time playing!

Zeer tevreden met alles van Harley Benton. Prijs/kwaliteit altijd top!

DC 580 CH vintage series guitar

This came flawless, the set up is perfect, the sound and feel is amazing. It is everything and more than I had hoped for.

Beautiful guitar amazing price for the quality.

Great for the price

I bought this guitar to have as a spare while mine got some work done.

For the price it is a great guitar to mod, the body/finish is done really well. I could only find a few small, and I mean small, imperfections. The frets needed some polishing, but the ends were well done and almost perfectly level. The pickups will probably be the first thing changed but the stock ones sound decent. All in all a great guitar to mod or for a beginner.

I only noticed one major flaw in my guitar or I would have given 5 stars. When peeling the plastic off the pickups I couldn't get all the plastic off. I was changing the strings anyway so I pulled the pickups out to remove all the plastic. Upon inspection of the pickups the Bridge and Neck pickups were reversed. It didn't take that long to rewire the pickups, but wish I didn't have to so I took a star away.

Other than the pickups the guitar was more than I expected for the price.

Love this guitar!

Have had it for a month now and cannot find the words..but I'll try. I originally bought this with the intention of having something to add variety to my home studio palette and was expecting a toy. Was very surprised out of the box how good it felt, intonation spot on, straight neck, etc. Then I plugged it in; not a trace of noise or hum! Felt almost too good to be true so I took it to my luthier friend, who too, could find nothing wrong other than the need for some minor nut work to fix a slight buzz on the A string at the 3rd and 4th frets. So far so good, but how would it stand up in live performance? At this price surely the pickups would be microphonic feedback machines? NOT! The guitar held it's own with a full band and a guy in the audience asked me after if I was playing a 'newer Gibson SG'? Really, really impressed. I plan now on collecting more Harley Bentons!

SG guitars suitable for hard rock and heavy metal.

010 strings for great sound and heavy rhythm.

Need to get used to such a guitar,but then it is convenient to play.

I have SG guitars a few.

My advice is don't tink twice and buy SG guitars.

Amazing for the price

I've always wanted an SG style guitar that I could mod in the future and this fits the bill. The finish is amazing and the inlays are surprisingly nice, especially the harley benton logo on the headstock. My primary criticism is how sticky the neck is, it could be a little smoother.

For the price is an eccellent choise for a beginner,very good structure with a very fast neck!!

great value

My 12 year old grandson saved lawn moving money from this summer and was able to afford this beautiful guitar ($116.00). It is absolutely gorgeous! Sounds great!

Very decent guitar for the price

Plays and sounds just perfectly for the price, the red gloss appearance is satisfying and overall the guitar offers comfortable playing. My only (minor) issue is that it the tuning keys are delicate and can go out of tune easily sometimes, but nothing that causes a big problem.

All in all, would recommend easily.

Excellent Guitar

The craftmanship on this guitar is superb for the money! The inlay work, the action all seem perfect after close examination. I own a Epiphone Sheraton, and did own an Epiphone LP, both not finished as well as the DC-580.

The guitar is easy to play but for me I will be putting on 11's and have put chrome tele knobs on, only as a personal preference and I have to say this guitar looks even better. I do prefer the offset shape of the DC to the big G SG original. The paint work looks great!! This is a lovely looking guitar that plays well.

I think the pickups sound very decent so I will leave them in. The bridge seems alright too but the tuners are a little slack but I think they are decent too.

I totally recommend the DC-580 if you want a good quality SG/Gibson type of guitar.

Very very poor

Guitar arrived today and boy what a disappointment.

Tuners are very cheap and not accurate - guitar will NOT stay in tune.

One of the tone knobs was pressed tight into the body and was sitting 1/2 cm below the others.

I have two deep cuts on my index and pinky after 20 minutes of testing - the edges of the frets are razor sharp and badly finished.

Pickups are muddy and lacking in definition. Action was very high. A luthier inspected the guitar and told me it would cost around £100 to fix the mistakes but his advice was that it was unplayable and he told me to return it immediately.

I'm returning this for a refund and I regret ever spending the money on it...without a doubt the worst instrument I've tried in 30 years. How this ever got past quality control is beyond me.

Great buy

For the price it is great - sounds great, looks great. However some parts do feel a bit cheap especially the knobs - one of them would not attach properly to the pot. However I recommend it, especially if this type of guitar is not your usual buy/style and the big G is too expensive for a guitar which is not your main one.

Awesome

The red gloss finish looks beautiful. It sounds and feels good with the shorter scale length. It came already set up perfectly out of the box, just needed to re-tune it. I've had it for about a month now and have had no problems with it. It's not the traditional SG shape, the upper horn side is slanted so it's more like the ESP viper.

There are only three negative things I can say about this guitar, but these are mostly problems with SG-style guitars in general, and not this guitar specifically. First problem is that it has a bit of neck dive, which seems to be common in a lot of SG-style guitars. Second problem is I don't like the location of the strap button, as it gets in the way when trying to access the highest frets. Third problem which is very minor is that the pickup selector feels a bit floppy, but it works completely fine nonetheless.

I don't think you could really tell the difference between this and a 1000$ gibson sg. It's good