Harley Benton Fusion-III HSH Roasted FNT

Amazing value

I've had excellent experiences with HB products in the past so felt confident going for this and have not been disappointed. The overall appearance is exactly as pictured on the website and the quality of the workmanship is way beyond what would be normally be expected at this price bracket.

Out of the box, the setup felt good with a low action and the trem nicely balanced. Frets have all been dressed well with no rough edges anywhere. The contouring of the body and neck joint are excellent making it feel really comfortable to play as is the roasted neck which feels fantastic. The sound is strong offering a lot of well balanced options.

The only slight issues are that tuning is not great when using the trem for any more than very subtle actions (possibly a smoother nut may resolve this, or fewer windings on the locking machine heads) and there are one or two very minor blemishes in the finish. Given the price, these are barely worth mentioning.

Overall, this is a great buy that reinforces the reputation of the brand.

Great Guitar for the money

I bought this guitar looking for a flexible instrument that can convincingly play different styles, and achieve a wide variety of tones. It did not disappoint.

I did have to return the guitar, as it head a pretty serious defect (not a B-Stock). The return process went seamlessly, and I got a new guitar with the quality I expected.

Outstanding!

This is my second HB guitar. I had read and watched numerous reviews of this exact guitar so I had high hopes, and wasn't disappointed. Arrived in UNDER A WEEK from Germany to New York State, USA, and was playable within minutes of unboxing after a truss rod adjustment and tuning. (To be expected, it was HOT on delivery day and it had spent half the day in a truck. The guitar was actually WARM to the touch when I opened the box). Overall I couldn't be happier. Its nice and light but doesnt feel like a toy. The versatility of sound options is great. Push pull coil splitting and 5 way switch work great and feel solid. I was especially pleasantly surprised at how responsive the stock tone control was. Wilkinson Vibrato system feels amazing, very solid, and almost no tuning issues even with crazy dive bombs. Never owned a Wilkinson before and I'm impressed. Incredible what can be acquired at this price point these days.

Only (relatively minor) negative comments I could give would be that the pickups could be a little hotter for my taste, but that's an easy fix. Also the neck pocket has a VERY SLIGHT gap on one side (not even bad enough to insert a business card) but I've seen guitars costing twice as much with a worse fitted neck. Frets feel slightly scratchy when bending but again that's an easy fix or they'll just smooth out from normal use... definitely not a deal breaker.

To be clear, pickups definitely don't sound bad, just not exactly high enough output for my ears. I'm very pleased with the variety of sounds available and am still exploring all the options. I'd been used to the two hamburger, 3 way switch configuration.

Overall I am thrilled and will definitely choose Harley Benton again.

Thank you!

Very beautiful and functional guitar

The guitar is very cool, given its low cost, we can say that this is the best offer. The sound is collected and quite dense, but bright. The guitar is very well made, the frets do not catch the hand, but it may be necessary to lower the height of the strings above the neck. The instrument looks quite rich, from a distance you can confuse it with some kind of Suhr. I am very pleased with this guitar and I think in the future I will buy another similar instrument.

Nice guitar overall, but some quality improvements and playability fixes needed

This guitar is pretty playable, but there are some things that are not convenient:

1) the location of right hand corner cut is just wrong, and I feel the corner of the guitar while I'm playing,

2) the location of volume pot is too close to the place where I like to play with my right hand and I hit it with my fingers,

3) the bridge would not return to it's location because it touches the body on the side, I had to install a tremsetter (aka tremmory) to make it playable,

4) there are some places where the body wood was just dirty and I can see that beyond the finish.

5) feedback from the guitar -- it's kinda muffled, it's not very responsive.

Overall, this is a super nice guitar for the price, but it needs minor improvements.

I would consider it as a nice addition to the collection, but this doesn't feel like the main guitar.

However, there are some good things as well:

1) I like the pickups, they sound like modernized PAFs to me -- don't plan to change them,

2) I like that there's ability to enable coil split which makes the instrument very versatile.

Awesome

Set up right and playable right out of the box.

No blemishes. pickups are great. I don't use the whammy bar much at all but seemed to stay in tune when I tried it. excellent value!!!

Took a lot of time to make playable

Finally got around to working on this guitar. It’s beautiful but needed hours of attention to get it into playing shape. The frets were in rough shape out of the box. The ends were sharp and the stainless steel was unpolished and unplayable scratchy. I would only recommend this model to players that have experience setting up guitars and that understand what to expect from HB as far as level of finish work.

The definition of "Value for money"

The guitar came to me two days ago.Its the definition of "Value for money",it sounds like charm, especially the clean tone it was a big surprise for me .Amazing fretboard ,a guitar that gives you the freedom to play everywhere at any stage and anything .

Good for it's price.

The guitar has a solid sound and it's ok for it's price. It looks pretty good but I recieved it with some dots of dirt or comething else below the varnish. It can't be seen from far, but I can see it when I play it, but it's not a big deal. When I was opening backplate some piece of varnish broke away and now I can see the wood itself. But It's not a big problem too. Everything else is ok or even great, guitar arrived to me without any scratches and I'm grateful for that.

Harley Benton Fusion II

I've bought this guitar for gigging and absolutely happy with it after six months of constant using.

Pros:

-Tuning stability. Tuners work well. I often use tremolo though.

- Neck. It's so comfortable and feels amazing! I really love it!

- Humbucker to single coil switch.

- Light weight. As I perform five days a week it's a big advantage.

Cons:

-5 way switch. It was ok first two or three months. But now there's no sound at all unless I switch it again and again. It doesn't happen regularly but sometimes it drives me crazy especially while gigging. But it's not a big problem. I've already ordered new one to replace it and hope everything will be alright.

In conclusion I would say if you need a great studio guitar, or a great gigging guitar you won't be disappointed with it.