Harley Benton DC-Junior Pelham Blue Reviews

Totally in awe

This guitar is beautiful, easy to play, comfortable, sounds great, and I have not put it down. The only things I needed to do were change the strings, oil the neck, adjust truss rod slightly, lube the nut, lower the bridge and shim the pickup as it was to low for my tone. Voila a guitar so good, it is right next to my Gibsons, Fenders and Epi's. I would totally gig and record with this. It is that good. I would give it a 9 out of 10 stars.

Good looking, great sound but preventable damage!

This marks my 7th purchase of a Harley Benton (I may have a problem🤣). I’ve been lucky in the past but my last two purchases have shown up with minor damages that you would expect to find on a b-stock (neither order was for a b-stock).

I addressed the issues with the Fusion III and was told the next guitar would be discounted and set up by a tech before shipping. It came with a new set of Ernie Ball Slinky’s on it and the intonation was bang on and the discount was in tue strings and set up.

There are what appear to be hammer/tool/clamp(?) dents on the fretboard. There are 5 all the way across the 10th fret and one at the 3rd fret under the high e string. It’s concerning as I don’t know how it will hold up down the road.

Now for the good! This guitar looks fantastic in the Pelham Blue with a slight metallic look to it. The frets, as with every other HB I’ve received, are dressed nicely with no sharp edges. The Rosewell P-90 sounds amazing, add in some distortion and it totally rocks! I’ve had it for almost 2 weeks or so and I’ve had trouble putting it down! So far it holds tune amazingly well.

In the long run, I’m happy with the guitar but can’t give 5 stars simply due to the preventable damage to the fretboard! But I would still recommend this guitar to anyone!

Plays Very Nicely

Nice playable light weight guitar.

I like the pelham blue colour with the black headstock and chrome hardware.

Unfortunately there were two screws that were loose in the scratch plate caused by over-tightened screws in manufacturing. This was also the case with the bottom strap button, and that could be potentially disastrous! Because the guitar looks and plays nicely I fixed the loose screws by fitting longer screws. This should not be necessary on a new guitar and suggests poor manufacturing and marginal quality control.

The Wilkinson tuners and bridge are good quality and perfectly functional and look good too. The volume and tone controls are smooth and progressive in their range. They are not noisey in use at all, which is commendable.

Neck is great for me and the painted neck is surprisingly smooth to play on. However there was a very small blue paint chip on the back of the headstock. The black paint around the tuning posts is patchy but you have to look close to see this.

Nice smooth fret ends with the no fret sprouting but the fret facings are a bit scratchy.

The guitar plays and sounds very good. It is of good value for money but the QC in production and pre shipping could be better.

winner winner chicken dinner

Don't hesitate to get your hands on one of these excellent instruments.

Great guitar in this price range

Great guitar and ready to play out of the box. No set up is necessary. The guitar is light weight and can be carried around easily. The quality of the frets is very good. The only thing that I found strange is that the overall length of the guitar is smaller that usual electric guitars - it could be that the body is smaller. Would be an excellent choice for a beginner.

Exactly how the original Junior was intended.

Gibson originally created the Junior to be a "student guitar"...meaning a decent quality, affordable guitar. But since then Gibson cares more about milking people for their money than actually honoring why they made this instrument in the first place.

Harley Benton brings back the original spirit of the Junior guitar: meaning a decent quality, affordable instrument. Bravo Harley Benton, as this guitar is well built, plays so comfortably and has a great sound.

Very Disappointed with Quality Control

I want to start this off with pointing out that I do know this is a budget guitar and my expectations were not that of a 4,000.00 custom shop guitar. This also was not a b-stock.

The finish was poor, actual scratches pre-installed from factory. There is checking (or possibly even wood cracking) on the back of the headstock. Whomever installed the tuners was a hack. on the high E string when I went to install some Gotoh locking tuners the top screw of the tuner was spinning freely. This was because it was broken off into the headstock. Once I got it out, I found that this is because they already previously broke off a screw and tried to send another at an angle around it, causing it to break.

The guitar is not loud at all, I mean at all. If I plug in my other Harley Benton to my amp, it can be heard by my neighbors, down the street. When I plug this one in with the same settings, I can't even hear it from the next room.

The wiring looked like a person was seizing while holding the soldering iron.

Just not good. Disappointed.

This is one great guitar for the price!

This guitar looks, sounds and feels great to play!

I play a lot of punk/pop type music and some rock/blues and after playing on this guitar for about a week now, I can honestly say that it is one of my favourites. The colour is just beautiful, have a really nice sparkly glitter to it that just catches the eye. I did a very close look to see if there was any scratches or blurs in the finish and I couldn't spot any. The build quality and set up of of the box was very good and all I had to do was put on a new set of strings since the ones that it came with had that oxidized feel to them. The pick up sounds great, and playing with the volume and tone knobs give this beast a ton of different voicings, from snarly broken up crunch to warm clean tones. The neck starts out rather slim and narrow at the nut, but does thicken up nicely as you get towards the bridge, which felt strange at first, but now just feels natural even when switching through guitars.

Pleasantly surprised.

I wasn't expecting much but this thing is a pleasure to play and is sounds great. I always had reservations about getting a single pickup guitar but I am happy with my purchase. It will hold its own against any other brand.

If you want an inexpensive single pickup electric guitar, get it!!!

Great looking guitar, nice finish, light as a feather, sounds decent, great platform for upgrades/modifications.

Only issue with the guitar that I could find is that one of the pole pieces in the pickup is stripped (and therefore cannot be adjusted).

Great guitar, QC issues

This is a nice guitar, but it has it's issues. It was setup perfectly out of the box, however the QC leaves much to be desired.

Strings were rusted, hardware had toolmarks and rust on the bridge, bubbling on the fretboard trim (which is black, by the way, and not brown like the photos), there is a big blob of very dark blue paint on the bottom of the guitar, the p90 was loose and wobbling, and there were small black marks under the neck as if hung on a hanger. Demo unit maybe? Definitely not new.

I'm in the USA, so it'd cost me more than the guitar is worth to send back, but keep in mind you are getting exactly what you pay for with this guitar. It plays fantastic, but corners are VERY obviously cut.

Amazing guitar for the money

I was hesitant to go in on a HB, so I grabbed this on a whim and am shocked at how nice it is. The Pelham Blue is great, sparkly and not a scratch on it. The neck is smaller and than a normal LP neck but I like that and I've been using this as a practice guitar. The pickup is fine for my purposes as I never play live (Update: I replaced the stock pickup with a Lollar overwound P90 and some shims to raise it up and this thing sounds amazing). I'm very happy so far and have already bought another HB.

Best Harley Benton I've bought

I'm very critical about guitars. I often find guitar setups to be less than average, out of the box. The first thing I normally do, when getting a new guitar, is get it over to the local guitar tech and get a professional setup - nut cutting and fretwork, if needed. This happens for about 90% of guitars, even high end ones.

I'm genuinely gob smacked how well this guitar has been built for the money.

- The fretwork is very good. Shiny frets, almost perfectly level. There is one high fret, but I'll take it to the tech to sort that out.

- The bridge doesn't have to be decked to the wood to get a low action, which can be common on this style of guitar.

- Amazingly clean fretboard (none of that usual black stuff that comes on on your fingers when playing)

- The nut is cut perfectly, no binding and cut properly to not give you out of tune cowboy chords, and even the dreaded F bar chord.

- Pickup is usable. Very much like a mellow tele pickup. I won't be swapping it

- The machine heads are very good quality, for the price

- A lovely, sparkly finish.

- Very smooth volume and tone controls

- Solid jack socket.

The only real con is that there is a slight ding on the top side of the neck, just near the fretboard, in the clear coat. You don't feel this, when playing, so I'm not too fussed about it.

On arrival, the neck had a bit of a forward bow, but the truss rod is good and it straightened up perfectly. I imagine this may be due to temperature fluctuations, or maybe the QC set it up this way as forward bow is better than back bow.

It may be that because this guitar was on pre-order, it hasn't been sat in a warehouse for ages and hasn't had time to develop any major faults. Either than, or Harley Benton have really up'ed their game on these newer models.

If this guitar was your first purchase, you would be very happy with the setup. I can't recommend this guitar enough. This is by far the best Harley Benton I've had my hands on. This guitar is the best is the best value for money guitar that I've ever purchased.

Very happy.

This guitar is killer!

really great guitar! quality is more like a expensive instrument ! very lite and resonant! The pelham blue colour is awesome looking! I only change the nut to bone and the pickup to lollar p90 dogear and it SREAMS! The stock pickup is great too just a little different from p90! Great work Harley Benton !

Amazing guitar for the money.

I purchased this guitar during it's first run as my first brand new guitar in almost 20 years. I chose it because the DC junior style has always been a favorite of mine and I couldn't really pass up the price.

When I got the guitar I was genuinely stunned by the quality, especially for the price. The finish was flawless, the set up was perfect, and the color was even more attractive than the pictures made it look.

I've now had it for a few months and I am still as happy as I was when I first got it. It sounds great, it plays great, it's significantly lighter than my Flying V, which also makes me look forward to playing it. My only complaint is the use of a neck pickup cover instead of a bridge pickup cover, meaning the pickup is a little farther away from the strings than it could be, but that's a minor issue that can be fixed.

I cannot recommend this guitar enough and I have a feeling HB is going to be my go-to for any more guitars I may get in the future. Especially if they make a two-pickup DC Special ;)

Absolutely wonderful and light weight

My second DC-Junior and on the first one I decided to change the pick up to a Seymour Duncan SH4-JB as that is my favourite pick up. Pick ups can be a very personal thing.

The guitar is very light weight and still well balanced. The P-90 stays on this guitar as I found it give a good sound where you can hear the tones even if you play distorted as I do most of the time. You still can get it to scream so there is power in the pick up.

Neck feels really good, better than on the first one. The quality have improved but the other one I use 11-54 and on this I decided to stay with 10-52. Great rhythm guitar sound and easy to play.

Tuners look good and it stays in tune as long as you remember to stretch the strings after you change them and do it more than ones. Another beautiful guitar for under 200€ and it looks just gorgeous!

Amazing guitar

Excellent build, perfectly setup and sounds fantastic. Truly an incredible guitar for the money. Excellent feel to the neck, comfortable but with a slight vintage feel. The blue sparkle finish is sublime and really makes it stand out.

So much play-ability for so little cost!!!

I've always wanted an authentic looking DC Jr, but without the crazy price of the original. I play various styles of rock/metal and wanted one of these to cover the more classic - heavy rock stuff.

I am totally amazed that this guitar was achievable at such low costs! i love it!!!

Total honesty and transparency now. I think this is easily as playable as some of my more expensive guitars. The neck is VERY comfortable and probably one of favourite necks that i currently own. Fit and finish was very good.

I'm not a fan of the Roswell P90 in my personal opinion. Not thats its a bad pickup, but I prefer hotter pickups for a bigger bottom end and tightness. For cleaner or more classic styles of Rock, i would imagine it to be a great suited pickup. Its pretty clean and jangly so in that respect, its pretty good - just not my personal style so i cant mark it down for that.

Tuners seem ok so far and Wilkinsons are generally pretty good. mine felt a little 'gritty' but that may just be from factory dust etc. A little GT85 sprayed inside should clean that out nicely.

I will list some honest opinions below for total transparency, although none of these would stop me buying another one at all!!

Pros:

Solid build

great finish

decent hardware

superb feeling neck

great fret work

individual saddles for easier intonation

Cons:

Not a fan of the low output Roswell P90 (personal opinion)

slightly gritty feeling tuners (not a deal breaker though)

i prefer the look of the speed knobs to the top hats (again, a personal opinion)

Overall I am VERY impressed and this stunning Colour DC Jr has scratched the itch of wanting this style of guitar without the massive price tag. The quality is on par with much higher priced guitars. The price easily allows the buyer to swap or upgrade anything to suit their styles or tastes if they feel they need to.

My star ratings are not a deflection on the guitar but purely based on my own personal preferences

Extremely happy and would definitely buy again (maybe i'll get the SC version next!)

Great guitar

I'd heard good things about the Harley Benton guitars. I'd had my eye on the dc juniors for a while, and when they came out with this color I just couldn't resist anymore.

This is a good guitar. There's not much else to say. Not just a good guitar for the money, but a good guitar. Feels more expensive than it is. I think i'll have a lot of fun with this guitar, I'll definitely use this for shows.

Pro's:

- fretwork and overall fit and finish is great.

- metallic finish looks amazing.

- it's light (a pro for me personally)

- volume and tone are very responsive.

Con's:

- I've seen people say that the pickup sounds more like a single coil than a P90, and that it's a bit far from the strings. I've never played with any other P90's so I can't really speak on that. It sounds good to me.