Harley Benton HB-35Plus Cherry Reviews

Great instrument after a year.

I purchased this instrument about a year ago and it's been great. I heared the HB quality control is sometimes questionable but mine was absolutely great. Setup was close to perfect for my taste, only needed some slight adjustments when switching to 9 gauge strings. I didn't feel the need to replace anything but I did remove the strikeplate because it looks and feels cheap and I like the look without it more anyways.

The sounds are great, the tuners work well and all in all it punches well above it's pricepoint.

my favorite guitar

feels great , plays great , looks great. cant go wrong

super nice guitar

I ordered the guitar with slight apprehension.

The price is great and the sound is very good.

My guitar teacher was amazed at the quality of it.

The guitar came with a very good set up.

I love the sound of this guitar.

Pleasantly Surprised!

It's always exciting getting a new guitar but this experience was over the top. Upon receiving the guitar, which incidentally was less than a week coming from Germany to the Us. The only issue I had with the guitar was the string height setting on the upper frets...high enough to necessitate adjustment. When I lowered the easily adjustable bridge a little, the strings stopped playing completely. Instant confusion and a little panic vanished when I discovered the strings were hitting the bridge pick-up and not the frets.. Once I lowered it I was easily able to adjust the string height to a very exceptable playing level. Confused on why the inspector missed what seemed obvious to me but literally that's my only complaint. A very careful examination of the other details on the guitar and build quality revealed that this guitar absolutely beautifully assembled and finished. And the design feature of the glued neck thru the body creates a vibration and sustain that you feel in your hands and body..a feeling of quality and connection. This is undoubtedly the best and prettiest guitar I've purchased in this price point and possibly any price point if I really think about it. A great value because it's not only reasonably priced, it's a pleasure to play and looks great too. Buy one...you'll love it too!. Tom H

Outstanding !

I've had a '69 Gibson ES-335 since 1981, and was curious as to how the HB-35 Plus would measure up. I'll be damned...it's amazing, infact I like the bigger neck on this HB much more ! Fit and finish are impeccable and the Roswell pickups are surprisingly good,especially the bridge,which is very punchy. The split coils are a terrific feature...Gibson take note! The neck pickup is a bit darker yet balances well in the middle toggle position,and has great bluesy tone on its own. Tuners hold great and the setup out of the box was excellent. The only things I've done are polish the frets,oil the fingerboard,and restring it with 10-46 Elixirs. A great playing and full sounding guitar. Mine is very resonant acoustically too,which is a sure fire way of knowing it'll be excellent plugged in. I've always wanted a red 335 ! If you feel the same way, get one...you'll be glad you did.

Amazing for the price!

I love it a lot, it's beautiful and works perfectly!

The only thing that is a bit annoying to me is the placement of the buttons as they can get in the way of playing at times :/.

Still I can definitely recommend this guitar as amazing :)!

I had to see if this was all hype or real. WOW!

OK I love my guitars. I own cheapo amazingly good guitars, through to Ibanez (which you just can’t go wrong with generally) through to Gibson Custom Shop. I build and repair and setup guitars too and have done for 25years. I like to think I know a bit about the subject. So, for £177 delivered is it any good. Simple answer…… it is amazing. If I had paid £1500 for this I would be happy. Really. Only two “issues” were very minor…. Lose strap buttons and frets need a polish. The frets are very well finished, smooth ends, no sprouts or sharp edges. Just dull. The neck relief as set up out of the box was as close to totally straight as I would ever dare. A hairs width of relief. A tiny amount. NO fret buzz anywhere, even on bends high up the neck. I wound the bridge down a bit to about 1.2mm - 1.5mm string height above the 22nd fret, and with the fitted 10s NO string buzz even on whole tone bends. Pickups sound incredible. Finish is great. For the little money actually the whole thing is stunning. Very close to my Gibson Custom Shop ES355. I’m not joking.

So as a sceptic I am actually totally astonished by this. I was expecting and counting on a project that would need work. I was wrong. A bit of fret polishing and tighten 2 screws, then adjust string height to preference.

Delivery to the UK was slower than pre-Brexit, about 6 days.

How they can turn these out for the money I do not know. Highly highly recommended.

Hard to fault

Everything good that you’ve heard is true!

Frets needed a good polish and fretboard needed plenty of lemon oil. Split-pots are brilliant.

Buy one now!

better than a Gretsch twice the price

I got a Gretsch that was broken out of the box. asked for a new one and still something wrong. I got this plus a Harley Benton bass plus extras for the same money and couldn't be happier. it sounds fantastic and the coil split allows it to go from clean country to metal on demand.

Amazing ! Way more expensive brands should be ashamed

I picked up this guitar as an alternative to my Gibson 335 to be used in “less desirable” situations. I didn’t expect much due to the price but thought I would roll the dice on it.

I was stunned !

The quality of this thing for the price is on another level, I actually prefer the sound of this to my Gibson’s for recording (I know that’s subjective) and I also just find my self picking this up all the time to noodle with.

I own quite a lot of guitars, several Gibson’s and PRS(USA) and a few American Strats. For me this guitar can hold its own with those big brands.

Obviously some of the fine details and the overall finish are not as refined as a 5k PRS but you have to be out of your mind or rich to take a 5k PRS to a crappy back street London club where it’s likely to get beer (or worse) thrown all over it. Think how many Harley Bentons you could get through until you reach 5K hahaha.

The only thing I would recommend to anyone getting one of these is give it a quick fret job, just level off the frets a bit then re-crown and polish, give the edges a smooth as well while your at it. After that if you played this blindfold you would struggle to tell the difference between this and a Gibson. Also to be honest I have had to give the same treatment to a couple of brand new Gibson les Paul’s as well so it’s not like their quality control is perfect.

Do it !

Buy it now !

You won’t regret it.

Flawless instrument

This guitar is amazing in so many ways. I could not find anything to complain about. The set-up is great and better than much more expensive guitars I own. This isn't the only Harley Benton I own and I have to say the others are also fantastic instruments. If you're hesitating on buying one, don't.

Amazing value

Love a lot about this instrument. Great playability and tones.

I recommend changing the strings as soon as you get it.

The construction is top notch for this price range.

Simply a brilliant guitar

As a relative beginner, with a Fender acoustic and a couple of budget electric guitars, a Squier Affinity Strat and an Epiphone Studio LT, I rather fancied a semi-acoustic to complete the set. I chose this after spending many hours on You Tube reviews and generally "looking around". I tend to ignore the worst reviews and look at the detail of the top 50%.

I was right ! This guitar punches so far above its price/weight !

Out of the box it was all but perfect.

Some say the frets are unfinished - wrong !

Some say the finish is lacking - wrong !

Some say the pups are "not quite right!" - wrong !

... and the scratch plate or pick guard was well cut and well finished !

(perhaps some left the protective film on ?)

All in all, quality control was very very good indeed

For the money, this is the very best finished guitar in this class that you could possibly hope for - It is outstanding !

I could go on and on, but the best thing to say is - I'm happy !

Best bang for the buck

Amazing guitar for it's price. Period.

Hard to fault it for the price

Very pleased, out of the box just needed a minor trust rod adjustment, 2 strings intonated to be perfect (pretty good already) and the action lowered to my liking.

Yes the frets do need a polish (although with a bit of playing they are nearly there) but the fret ends are nice and smooth.

Massive Plus

Not much more to say about this other than what as already been said. It is a stunning looking guitar {never mind the price} and I can't stop looking at it. The thing that impressed me was the great warm tone I can get on it. So looks great, sounds great. Any Cons? Only there is a slight buzz on the bass string at the 5th fret when played acoustically. No problem when plugged in. The strings seem below par to me, especially G string. I like the pau ferro fretboard but when I first played it my fingers were quite dirty. A dirty sound with dirty fingers!

All these cons are really minor. I haven't mentioned the price but an Epiphone Dot is twice the price and although I haven't played one I can't seeing it being twice as good, so very happy with my guitar.

A good budget guitar

I bought this for my partner, who is a beginner/part time player, for her birthday.

As a session musician and guitar tutor, I looked it over when it arrived.

Well packaged, in 2 boxes, the outer box being very sturdy, with the inner box well padded inside.

It is not a AAAA flametop. Maybe a AA.

Bridge posts not fully seated, but not really an issue.

Tuners, ok, solid, hold tune, intonation needed slight adjustment, action ok.

Pickups, great for the price, and with 8 combinations, plenty of variation.

Neck a little dry, but no big deal.

Screw on scratch plate not seated properly, which will require fixing.

Pots a little loose, pull ups fine.

Frets a little scratchy and will need a polish.

This is an entry level guitar, but you get a lot for the money.

It sounds good with lots of scope for variation, the cleans are sparkly, the mids and lows have a nice bit of grunt.

It plays very well, isn't heavy, and I found the neck very comfortable.

I think you'd be hard pressed to find better at this price point, and for a beater, mod project or practice instrument it's a bargain.

Get it set up right, and you could gig with it.

Sure, there are a couple of issues, but I've seen worse on much more expensive guitars.

All in all, I'd recommend this guitar; great price and real value for money.

Arrived with a bridge issue, now fixed

I returned an HB-35 due to an incorrectly placed/installed bridge which didn't allow the 1st and 4th strings to intonate correctly. I was otherwise very impressed, so decided to upgrade to the plus. Unfortunately this guitar also had a similar issue - the scale length was about 1-2mm too long. Rather than send this one back too, I looked into replacement bridges with a longer saddle travel. I bought a relatively cheap Gotoh bridge (GE103B-T chrome) which slotted on perfectly, solved the intonation problem and noticeably improved the volume and tone of the guitar. I'm now very happy with my purchase!

Pros:

-Great sound - lovely warm tones and surprisingly useful coil split sounds

-Gorgeous looks. Some slight imperfections, but nothing I'm bothered about

-Great value

-Very easy to setup. I had it playing nicely in minutes.

Cons:

-The aforementioned bridge issues - I guess I was just unlucky.

-The nut is a touch high.

Overall I am very happy and have fallen in love with this guitar. I recommend the Gotoh bridge i mentioned to anyone wanting an easy upgrade to their HB-35.

Unbelievable!

I watched some youtube videos, and decided to buy one.

The build quality is amazing for the price.

The sound is incredible. Love the Roswell pickups.

My friends played it, and said they wanted one.

The fretboard was in need of some oil.

The high "E" was touching the back of the bridge, but that was a simple adjustment of the the tail piece.

I would not hesitate to buy this guitar. Everyone should own one.

335

Amazing guitar for the money....sounds great on my vox 15 watt amp.

I highly recommend.