Harley Benton HB-35Plus Lemon 4-stars Reviews

Nice

Pretty nice especially compared to the price. The sound of the pickups is a little muddy, and the tuners are not the best - upgrade those and you have a great semi hollow - quality is astounding compared to the price

Good for price

I bought this guitar because I didn’t have a hollow body in my arsenal. I’m not disappointed with the product, however it leaves things to be desired. The pros of this instrument is it’s build, finish and versatility. The split coils give any player so much room to explore a world of sounds. It’s finish is never loses the initial awe and jaw dropping sight of when you take it out of the box for the first time. The build is solid and comfortable on the leg and there was no scratches or missing parts.

The cons ? Well it was extremely difficult to intonate and keep in tune particularly with higher gauge strings. Personally I found the volume knobs to be oversensitive particularly on the middle position.

Overall I was satisfied with the purchase especially when considering the price. It’s a good guitar for a low price however I would not recommend it as a first electric guitar for a beginner

Very good looking

The guitar is vert good looking and is made well. The only draw back to me is I do not like the sound of the pickups. Maybe and that is a big maybe I might change the pickups. This is just my opinion I well keep it just for it's looks and how well it is build.

Love this guitar

Not just a beautiful finish but also a great guitar. The only thing I would do is put new tuners on it. The rest is great from the humbucking tones to the single coil split on the neck pickup. I have 13 guitars and I play this one regularly.

Almost Perfect

I wish I could give this guitar a full five stars all around- a version of it with no or fewer flaws certainly deserves it. Unfortunately, mine has a few minor issues; The most apparent of these being the bridge volume pot. The push-pull functionality works perfectly- no problem there- but the functional range of the actual pot goes from about 5 to 10. There is no volume change when you roll the pot down under 5- meaning you cannot use the volume pot to turn the bridge pickup off. Not an enormous problem for me, as I'm almost always on 10 anyway and can easily just use a volume pedal to cut output, but a problem nonetheless.

The only other issues are all cosmetic. There are multiple spots of debris caught underneath the clearcoat, though mercifully they are all small and none are on the beautiful top. The binding around both f Holes is also quite rough in places.

Overall, I am EXTREMEMLY satisfied with the guitar, but a few minor flaws hold it back from being perfect.

HB 35 plus

Great value, good sound. Would buy again.

Perfect blend of expectations!

This guitar is a great value based on everything you could ever ask for at this price and so much more. The overall detail of finish and build quality is amazing. Its does require setup such as slight truss rod adjustment, intonation and action after you get it but this is a good thing. As a aspiring guitar player, basic setup of an instrument and these easy fundamentals are essential in being a life long player. No matter if it is a 200 dollar guitar or a 2000, they all need to jave a setup for the player who owns it. After an afternoon of getting this beauty setup, it felt and played like heaven. Fret ends were very smooth and dressed very nice right out of the box. The electronics also surprised me. The pots were very smooth and not dry feeling like you'd expect from an inexpensive guitar. The humbuckers were delightfully creamy with just the right amount of bite. I had a couple of hours of fun just breaking out everything from classic jazz solos to some edgy sounds of the classic rock era. I didn't have any issues with this instrument that made me think twice about buying it. Everything aside, it is such a beautiful gem to sit and look at hanging proud on a wall hanger. This thing is not only meant to be played but is is meant to be displaced too.

Lemon ?

My Lemon guitar finally arrived after fun and games with DHL, and it was

more orange than yellow, but I am used to it now!

However, it also arrived with a chip out of the paintwork on the side of the

headstock, so it was either damaged in transit (unlikely) or left the factory/ warehouse in that condition.

Stunning, had to return for an exchange though.

Awesome, a touch more orange than lemon/yellow.

Sounded amazing.

My one came with a very large blemish on the seam of the two blocks joining. Shouldn't have passed WC but it did.. returning it now for an exchange.

What a great guitar honestly.. if it weren't for having to wait another x weeks to get my hands on a decently finished one - it would be 5/5.

Best $245 I ever spent!

What can I say? What a great guitar and what a great price for a great guitar! The finish was pretty much flawless. It's beautiful! I could find nothing to complain about aesthetically. As for the neck, it's fast and smooth and easy to play, which is pleasantly different than what I was expecting to get. The frets are nicely done, although they could use a slight polishing.

I am also quite satisfied with the pickups, both for clean and dirty sounds. (In fact, I love the tones I am getting with it through my Hughes and Kettner Tubemeister 20 and pedals.) IMO the HB35+ pickups are better sounding than the Gretsch 5230's FilterTrons. I have little use for coil splitting but I found that I could get a couple good useable tones out of this guitar with this feature. The tuners are good but could be better, and at some point in the future I will probably add locking tuners. Lastly, the guitar does need a little bit if setup but not much at all. String action was the perfect height for me.

All in all, one cannot beat the value this guitar provides. I absolutely love it! I only took one star off for the tuners, but again I'm not really complaining about them. I just wish it came with locking tuners, although if it did the price would certainly be a little higher. But who cares? I'd gladly pay it because in the past year I've purchased an upper mid-range priced Epiphone, Ibanez, and Gretsch, all of which I've had to return for quality control issues or just failure to keep a tune. But I won't be returning this guitar...Thanks Harley Benton for a great product!

Mixed feelings

Reviewed after 2 months of ownership.

My guitar has minor cosmetic defects (the black lines on the edging are not clear and blurred, the pickguard is dry, the frets are not polished), but this was expected based on the reviews.

What really upset me was the dead note on the 4th string of the 11th fret. It really makes me cry.

Otherwise, a good instrument for your money and a great option to get acquainted with semi-acoustic guitar

Great value for the price.

Bought this as a project guitar to learn how to do basic set-up and mods, and it soon became my couch guitar.

Considering the price its a good guitar, features such as coil tap and individual volume/tone knobs for each pickup are great additions. The stock pickups are not bad but do leave some room for improvement.

Good purchase if you are looking for a semi-hollow guitar on a budget.

This is my first electric guitar! Here is what I think of it.English is not my native language. I am Russian, so allow me to apo

Appearance: First glance got me flummoxed due to its impeccable beauty but when I started to delve into it, I have found some flaws like badly polished frets, loose humbuckers, a bit inclined fretboard, a gap between the upper threshold and the head, buzzing strings so I had to rise them. Color of the body is orange, not yellow as expected.

Sound: Just wonderful regardless of clicks that I hear in my headphones when I play it. I don't know if it is up to the instrument.

Conclusion

I am uncertain if such high price is justified but there is still much to test. As an addition, take a look at this guitar SC-450Plus LD Vintage Series.

Thank you)

notches on the edge of the headstock are clearly asymmetrical and not exactly scaled to 3 thick strings.

Great guitar

So Ive never really played a 335 style guitar before this one, so Ive not much to compare this one to, but Ive got to say I'm really happy with this one. Feels like quite a fat neck. That said I'm comparing it to a strat, so that may not be totally fair. My only very minor flaw is a couple of little flecks on the body beside the bridge, which is hardly noticeable.Very pleased with it in general.

Great guitar

Great guitar..Neck is too chunky/Fat - Thinnier neck is needed!!

Good

Good guitar.

Looks great

Sounds better than the basic HB-35 I used to own.

Fretwork good, frets smooth, not mirror shine but good.

Tuners are fine, they're fairly common to a lot of HB models, not great, not poor, somewhere in between.

The wiring is visible through the F hole and messy. It would have taken about 30 seconds to tidy it, but this is a minor aesthetic issue.

Unfortunately I had to return it. The neck join was a two piece affair, with the main neck and then a small extra bit of wood at the rear of the body. There was a straight crack in the finish either in the wood or finish or both right across the join.

Item was packed reasonably well but the guitar box was over to one side of the parcel meaning it had no impact protection really.

Sadly it has to go back.

Great Value for a very playable ,well finished guitar

My Third HB guitar........the others are Tele Variants..........and as expected the overall finish is of a high standard if perhaps a little over heavy on the polyester varnish. The body binding is particularly well fitted.

The neck is true and straight but a little chunky for my personal liking.

A quick set up and it was playing well.

The Roswell pick ups are perfectly fine considering the purchase price of this instrument but I think the labels saying that they are coil tapped is possibly incorrect. In single coil mode thet are quite noisy which suggests to me splits not taps. Its possible to get some very useable jazz tones and nice edgy blues tones.

If this guitar is from the new Vietnamese supplier then there appears to be no change to the quality of the finished article and new buyers should have no cause for concern.

Overall, not my favourite of my three HBs but a very useable instrument at a very good value price.

For the money, a fantastic guitar

I bought this guitar as a temporary one and I never had a semi-acoustic. It is a great guitar for the money with a lot of features.

It looks great as well, though there are some set-up and minor construction flaws, it is still a great deal.