Harley Benton DC-Junior Pelham Blue Reviews

Cracking Guitar

If you are looking for your first or tenth guitar just buy one of these, the simple approach is usually the best.

P90 sound for sure

Stays in tune and intonation was spot on, love the short scale, quick to move around, love that it is bare-boned, one pickup, one volume, one tone knob! Smooths out when rolling off the volume to about 6-7

Best Budget Junior

Good guitar for the price. Definitely worth trying and being my First Harley Benton guitar, I have a great experience. The Frets are flawless and the action is pretty low and it's playable out of the box. Would definitely recommend.

Amazing quality, reasonable price

Purchased this to replace my main guitar and the setup was top-notch for the price. I would absolutely recommend buying this, however, the P90 is rather low from the strings and I had to purchase a shim to get it to a reasonable output level. Other than that one issue, it plays and sounds great!

Amazing value

A great guitar for the money. Played well out of the box, no real set up issues. Plugged in it sounds really good, again much better than it should for the price. Really playable, and recommended for beginners or those who want that P90 punky growl without breaking the bank.

Unreal for the price

I expected a lot less for the price point and I've kept it stock but 1 or 2 upgrades and you have a giggle guitar under £200

Pretty darn good

Good for the price, finish faded nicely in the sun & relics nicely with use

Great design and sound

It appeared with my favorite anime equipment, and I definitely wanted it. Thank you, Mr. Toman! And I look forward to working with you in the future.

Awesome bang for buck

This guitar just rocks. Overall the quality was fantastic. There weren't any finish flaws at all. The hardware is just OK, but fully functional and no real issues. The pickup sounded good, but I personally prefer something more raunchy and loud. The electronics were very clean and the pots felt nice when turning (had some nice feel in terms of resistance when turning). The bridge has a small lean forward on the posts, due to a loose tolerance of fit, but it didn't affect tuning or intonation. As is, this guitar is great. I'm a maniac, so I'm likely going to change everything out for hardware and electronics that I love, but that's just me. ROCK ON!

Color is not the same

And I can't use it with Harley Benton HB-20R

very light and easy to handle

very light and easy to handle

Amazing quality at this price

Above all, this color is now popular in Japan.

DC-JR

Great playability and sounds amazing. No set up required. But the body color was way off from picture and the face of the fretboard was painted darker then the sides/edges of fretboard

Great value for money

I watched many reviews of this guitar on YouTube before buying. Most gave glowing reviews but I was still a little skeptical. Once I got it I was really surprised at the quality, Paint is perfect, no flaws in appearance or mechanically. The nut was cut a little high, so I ordered a cheap set (~$10) and cut them to proper height and it plays really good with much lower action than when I got it.

I didn't deduct any points on quality because of the nut because that was such an easy fix. To expect perfection from a guitar in this price range is not a realistic or reasonable expectation imo. I was surprised that was the only thing that needed adjusting.

The pickup sounds good, with the nut cut correctly it plays great with comfortable action, it's super light & it looks good. I am very pleased with this guitar and will be ordering the TV yellow version in the future for a backup.

If you are handy with making basic adjustments to a guitar, I can not recommend this guitar enough whether you are on a budget or not.

Pelham Blue

Beautiful guitar and limited 1of 250

QC issues

I know I've had this for some time, and it's really good for the money, but just to let potential purchasers of a few problems I had.

The nut was very poorly cut, but that's probably to be expected at this price point.

The action was really high with the bridge at its lowest point, I replaced the bridge with a "pigtail" style, which has a much lower profile, and that enabled a much better setup.

The bridge post bushings were loose, and fell out of the body when I took the strings off. Fortunately the set of bushings for the new bridge were a much better fit.

So, I might just have been unlucky, but you may need to sort a few things out to get it playable.

Frets, action and sound

I previously bought an SC-DLX which I found to be excellent value, played well out of the box, although the frets were higher than I prefer. The Junior, albeit a lot cheaper, does not have anywhere near the same feel. The action is not great out of the box and adjustment is hampered by the very boxlike and utilitarian nut. The single Roswell does not have a very broad range and only really comes alive when given some distortion. It's natural sound is somewhat flat and uninspiring. The Wilkinson tuners do not keep perfect tune and require frequent minor adjustment. Overall, a reasonably good beginners guitar but not really for gigging. Should one expect more for the price? I suppose not.

You can't go wrong with this one!

What a guitar. Very good fretwork. Nice sounding pickup. Light and resonant body which is perfectly balanced. Tidy wiring that works flawlessly. Decent hardware that works well (tuners and bridge). The nut may need some tweaking for tuning stability, but is pretty good. All in all it's just what a Jr should be.

Mine played incredibly well out of the box - the action's right where I like it (moderately low, only buzzes when you dig in too hard). Perfect neck relief even after trips across multiple ponds from Indonesia to Germany to the USA. Pickups are full and sweet souding. Other P90's might be better, but these play the part extremely well. The frets are extremely well done - no high or low frets, and have nicely softened fret ends. The Pelham Blue finish is beautiful. It's darker, more vibrant, and more metallic than I expected, but I've very happy with it.

But... the big but.... the intonation was WAY off... as in only the high E was correct. The entire bridge needed to be adjusted away from the nut substantially, and all saddles including the high E moved to correct. Ten or 15 minutes with a screwdriver solved that, but really a bad setup.

It's a really good guitar. I'm not going to say 'at this price', it's just good. The price is just a bonus.

Not Pelham Blue

The guitar I received is much darker than a true Pelham blue, but the finish is still very good.

The stock P-90 pickup definitely needs to be upgraded, but that is not hard or expensive to do.

More attention needs to be spent on the fret ends. Many of them were sharp and made playing uncomfortable.

Imitation Game…on!

They say imitation is the best form of flattery. HB’s version of Gibson’s classic DC junior clearly testifies to the afore mentioned.

This guitar is both a great first axe and also the right side of affordability to mod with unbridle enthusiasm.

Great little LP DC Jr.

Summary: This guitar is great value for the money ‘as is’ and does not call for immediate major surgery, as long as you can accept it will not have the lowest of actions.

I had been playing rock music from the mid seventies until the nineties and picked up playing guitar again in 2013. Since then I’ve been adding to my ‘collection’ every now and then and I do some of the modifying myself as well when I think that’s necessary. A couple of years ago I got two Harley Bentons in exchange for a bass guitar I hadn’t been using for years (a TE-40 TBK deluxe and a JA-60 SB). The previous owner had spent some time on them; polished the frets and had given them good general set up.

I was pleasantly surprised. As a Les Paul DC with P90 had been on my wish list for a long time (but not the price they come at) I thought that by now I should try the HarleyBenton DC Junior in Pelham Blue. At this price I will judge it at ‘value for money’ standards. And by that ‘value for money’-standard it is a great little guitar but one that might benefit from some extra attention to detail. First impressions were very positive; it looks the part, good paint finish (+++++), no blemishes. Intonation was spot on straight out of the box (QC by John!). Fret board is of a beautifull pure-chocolate–bar brown (+++++). Not at all like the dried-out or pale-and-open-grain-with-purple-streaks kind of fretboards offered by some ‘other manufacturers’ these days. Frets have been finished nicely but some of the polishing/rubbing compound has been left behind because the first two days of playing , my fingertips were blackened. So out came the Axe-wax and the cotton cloth to clean that. The sides of the fret board have no binding but have been given a clear coat that also covers the fret slots, so in practice it feels very smooth; almost like the fretboard was bound (++++). The tuners are of the ‘white-bean’ style that’s correct for a Junior but not 3-on-a-strip. They do the job properly and you do not really need to replace them but even though they are ‘Wilkinson’ they feel a bit ‘toy-like’ to me. I will replace them with locking tuners with keystones. But that’s my personal taste. Looking into the pot-cavity shows conductive shielding paint and the cover has been given shielding foil. (+++++) The pots are (Korean made) Alpha so there too is no immediate need for modifying (++++). The cap is a tiny little dark-red ‘chicklet’ but I must say that the tone pot functions wonderfully (as does the volume pot) So: no immediate urge to heat up the soldering iron. Coming to the Roswell P90: the distance between the P90 and the strings is more than one would expect; usually bridge-P90’s are set quite close to the strings; here it is not. I may fit a shim under it. Having said that: at this set up it does sound very nice, clear, chiming and articulated (with a lot of ‘high’ and less ‘mids’) when played ‘clean’ with some reverb and echo. But there is less ‘bite’ (or call it ‘agression’) than one would expect (++++). Turn down the tone pot a bit (to about 6/7) and it mellows nicely. Meaning: you really do not need a neck pickup as well to get a usable palate of sounds. So what’s bugging me? It’s the action that could have been lower and more comfortable. Main cause is that wraparound adjustable bridge/tailpiece. It is of a design that has been around since the early seventies (Gibson has this very same design on their Tony Iommi SG’s these days!) but it is just a tad too highly-built for use on these DC juniors that obviously share the original design flaw Gibson built into their first series of Les Pauls in the early fifties: no neck angle. So you cannot crank the bridge down enough to set the action really low. It’s not the end of the world and many players these days do not crave the ultimate low-action I’m after but fitting a wrapround bridge/tailpiece that builds a few millimetres lower (may I be forgiven: like the one by Wilkinson.... of all things..) should do ‘the trick’ and should not have a huge averse impact on the consumer price of these guitars. But then the next issue may lie in the top nut. The string-slots have been cut to a ‘safe’ depth, meaning ‘not too deep’ and therefore are doing well enough with that slightly too high bridge settings. Unfortunately, once you have managed to get the action lowered at the bridge (i.e. after fitting a lower wraparound), the notes might go sharp in the lower positions and chords will be out of tune. Needing a luthier to cut the slots a little deeper. Conclusion: this guitar is great value for the money ‘as is’ and does not call for immediate major surgery, as long as you can accept it will not have the lowest of actions. If low action is what you want, you can easily find an affordable replacement wraparound bridge/tailpiece but then also be ready for a nut job by a luthier because if you are not versed at that you will only fall out of the frying pan and into the fire. Four stars out of five because I cannot give 4.5! Down half a star because of that wraparound bridge that's keeping it from full score. Cheers!