Harley Benton DC-Junior TV Yellow 3-stars Reviews

Nice guitar

Nice guitar but let down by pickup height and very shoddy nut placement.

The single pick up was no where near as close to the strings and sounded weak. Needed raising up. I didn’t bother and moved this on. However don’t let this put you off plenty of good reviews out there, I think this was a one off. Since I have purchased four HB guitars one sc 550 + emgs is the best guitar I have ever owned and stays in tune for months. The other three are on the way.

DC junior Mustard Yellow

just a short review whit pros and cons.

pros:

overall finish is good

setup on delivery close to perfect.

low overal action 1.5mm E, 1mm e --> no fret buss.

fret ends rounded.

fret's where polished.

very little fret unevenness.

action a the first fret correct.

no string binding in the nut.

intonation was spot on.

truss rod adjustment is smooth --> neck relief was correct.

tuners are wilkinson's and work correctly.

stays in tune very well.

alpha pots --> all soldering correct.--> good sensitivity

shielding paint in both cavities (see cons) --> pots and pickup.

neck has the exact same chunkiness as my TE52.

has a low weight at 3.05kg

cons:

is mostly related to on issue, the standard pickup adjustment.

as the pick up is of the dog ear type it has the basic flaw that its mounted directly to the body with no direct adjustment possible.

so it sits to low, which results in very low sustain and poor sound.

most noticeable on the low E with sounds muffled.

the pole pieces had been screwed out to compensate for this,

but you can't compensate this distance.

the pick up as mounted standard has the pole pieces(screwed out) sit about 7mm from the strings.

raised the pick up with shim's (+- 3,5mm), which immediately solved the above problems.

this is still with the pole pieces screwed out as was done by the factory.

as it is now it's a great improvement to the standard set up, but pick up height/pole pieces will need a fine tune.

which is a fiddly thing to do, due to the reason as mentioned in the above.

shielding paint can use a second coat.

the fret board is a stain finish on top, which makes it look weird when viewed from the side.

should have left it unstained, now it looks like its laminated.

or the side should have been stained all so.

the bridge does what it is supposed to do, but on looks alone is an abomination on this type of guitar.

the saddles are sharp, not sharp enough to actually cut you but sharp enough to be annoying/hurt.

will change the bridge in the future.

if you can look/work beyond the cons, the feel and playability is very good.

the only standard limiting factor is the pickup height.

and last of all be aware that the COLLOR IS NOT TV YELLOW at all BUT ACTUALLY MUSTARD YELLOW.

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had to take several stars of, as i found that the stud at the E string side is not drilled at the correcte distance.

with a wrap around bridge this stud should be about 4.25 mm further away form the neck than the e-string stud.

this to ensure that the bridge intonate's at a correct angle.

on this guitar the 2 studs are drilled in line, meaning that your stuck with the more expensive bridges if you want to upgrade the original one.

a prs style wrap around bridge will fit but its barely resting on the stud.

or alternately you fill up the original bushing hole, re drill at the correct spot and refinish the top.

in both cases its a expensive mod, ones better of in spending a little more on other brands where you halve from the start a better guitar for in the end less money.