Harley Benton HB-35Plus Lemon 5-stars Reviews

MInd officially blown!

After a lengthy back order, my guitar finally arrived, in almost perfect tune! I did a slight intonation adjustment, and adjusted the action to suit my playing style. The look and feel is 99.9% perfect. The only "flaw" I noticed was one of the tuners was ever so slightly off centre, but even me having slight OCD about my guitars did bother me...it's that slight!

I own many guitars, high end ones at that (gibsons, fenders, mosrites), and this one matches the quality as those others. I am quite honestly blown away with the look, feel and sound...even through my Marshall JCM2000, it kills it!

For the money, it is a great guitar!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy with it

Pleased with the quality and value for the money. It sounds and plays great and looks great too!

Fantastic buy

I only gave this guitar 4 stars out of 5 on quality because of how it came out of the box, but after oiling the completely dry fretboard twice and polishing the frets once by myself, and then taking it to the guitar tech to lower the action (which I tried myself by lowering the bridge but got fret buzz), leveling, crowning and another fret polish, as well as putting some quality strings on it (the old ones were rusty and lifeless), the guitar feels and sounds fantastic.

Note that all of the things I've mentioned previously will add around another 100 dollars / euros to the price of the guitar (give or take depending on where you're from), but the guitar is still totally worth it, in my opinion.

Considering the price of this guitar, I completely recommend it especially if you're a beginner or on a budget, or just want a workhorse guitar to take on the road and keep your expensive ones safe.

I'm not a good guitarist by any means, but my tech (who is a great guitar player) was impressed with it and said that it's good enough to play live gigs with it.

Lemony Goodness

I can't say enough good things about this guitar for the price. The frets are a little rough but 20 minutes with a fret file and this plays like a really nice, top end guitar.

I'm having a lot of fun with it. I play weekly in a praise band at Church.

What can I say?

I received the guitar two days ago and immediately played it for a few good hours. How do they do that? For €200? This guitar is higher quality than an E or an I at the fraction of the cost.

The neck on the guitar is very comfortable. I would best describe it as medium C. It's a bit thicker than my LP 60's slim taper neck. It's very comfortable. The pickups are very surprising and sound great. I won't be replacing them for now. The tuners are very good as well and hold the guitar in tune.

I bought it actually to put 0.13 flats on and make it a jazzbox. I think it will do just great.

As good as they say it is

There are plenty of videos on t'internet that sing the praises of this guitar. The most comfortable guitar I have played, well intonated before dispatch, holds it's tone well.

I feel a little guilty docking a star for quality; but there are a couple of small blemishes that don't live up to the otherwise high standards this guitar sets.

I'm in love!

great

Far far better than i was expecting, Sound is perfect, Feel and playability are exceptional for the price.

Overall a very nice guitar.

Superb guitar

I have just taken delivery of my beatiful new HB 35 Plus Lemondrop and couldn't be more impressed

Everything about the guitar is of the highest quality and cannot be faulted - the guitar was well set up and plays really well 'straight out of the box'.

The finish is immaculate -quite unbelievable with an instrument at this price point.

I was even more happy when I plugged it into my Boss Katana amp and cranked it up - what a range of quality sounds available especially enhanced with the really useable 'coil-taps.

This guitar is so good I would advise anybody who is thinking about getting one not to hesitate and order one straight away

I have a wide range of 'quality guitars' Les Pauls Tele's Strat's etc but would say this one rates just as highly

Better than it sounds, but there is something to improve.

Friends, we’ll be honest. This guitar is made well, the frets on the pad are aligned in height.

The strings can be lowered without a loss of sound quality.

The color is good and the structure of the wood under the varnish is real.

Now to what I did not like:

1) The bridge cannot be lowered very low, now the distance from the strings to the neck is 1.2-1.5 mm... I feel that you can lower it again.

This is probably due to the design of the hull; on the Gibson, the bridge's padding is installed lower in the hull.

2) This is a heavy guitar, heavier than my Gibson LPJ.

You should know that this guitar does not fit in a regular case for an electric guitar and for this guitar you need to buy a case.

To summarize, this is a good guitar that performs its function completely.

wow

such a good looking feeling and sounding guitar and for the cost of a good night out , just take off the crappy pick guard too unleash the full beauty of the axe,cheers

Wow! As stated by many Wow! Much better than expected.Set up was near spot on for me, finish and hardware all perfectly acceptable.

Sound is great!

For the money I am blown away!

If I had to gripe it's a little on the heavy side but i am not surprised by this.

HB35 lemon

Love it. The color grows on you after a bit. Overall, great guitar at a great price. Very happy with my purchase.

Very nice semi-hollow guitar

This is a great guitar, my first Harley Benton guitar, and I am really impressed with the quality and sound. The guitar set up was absolutely perfect directly from the box upon arrival to me and it sounds and plays great. The only thing is for me it sounds too "flat" on coil splits, especially, bridge.

I wnated to replace the pickups of the pair of Gibson 35/35+ that I have, but so far I am fine with the sound of Rosewell pickups - I thought it will be much worse.

HB 35 plus

great quality

sounds great

slight fret buzz , was able to smooth out with no major issues

Great Buy!!!

I came from Hong Kong, and I know not much people in here had ever heard about Harley Benton. I only heard it from some budget guitar review from youtube. My first bought is the TE-30 Telecaster which impress me a lot, so I go to my next purchase of this HB-35 Plus. Straight out of the box, everything is ok with no issue. The guitar had been set up with a little bit high action, so I lower it and it still work without buzzing, that's great! In my experience, all budget guitar could not set up for too low, otherwise they will buzz like crazy. But I cannot find this problem in my 2 Harley Benton guitar! Sound great and play great as well!!! The only con is the wire that could be easily seen from the sound hole, and it's maybe not too good to be looking at. Otherwise, everything is good! Highly recommended!

Unconditionally a great guitar!

I had wanted a semi hollow for some time. A Starfire lV or a D'Angelico DC deluxe were defiantly on my radar but the price was a real barrier. Enter the Harley Benton HB-35 plus. With favorable reviews, sounding good on YouTube and coming in at only £175 - I took a chance and ordered one in a Lemon Drop finish.?I was resigned to the inevitable flaws that would come with such a low priced instrument so I waited anxiously in the UK for 48 hours while it came from Germany by road (yes, pre Brexit)?

On unboxing I was in for a shock. I could find NOTHING wrong. Nothing!?The finish was immaculate, no glue lines under the stain, no loose nuts or screws, no stickers under the pots (just paper rings) and the well documented pick guard issue had been addressed. These newer models also have block inlays instead of dots and a pau ferro fingerboard with a bone nut. (It says ?Pau Furro? on the box)?Mine has a lovely (almost) book-matched flame maple top and the scarf joint in the neck is barley visible. The neck is a sort of chunky round back (not for you if you are a wizard fan) This neck is very reminiscent of a '65 Starfire that I had recently tried.

Plugging in, the trend continued with all the hardware working. The Roswell pickups are adequate, maybe a bit hot, with the back pickup sounding harsh when the coil tap is engaged. However, the tone and volume controls work well, which can tame the pickups for a more relaxed jazz tone. I am not a fan of top hat knobs and want to replace them. Because of this I found that the knobs are VERY securely attached (not all bad if you have to pull on them for coil tapping)?I lowered the bridge and still have no buzzing.

Pros: Unbeatable value for money. Good playability out of the box (after tuning). A range of very useable tones.?Awesome sustain. Good QC on mine. Beautiful finish all round with no orange peel or glue lines

Cons: You may need to upgrade the pickups and tuners to match the big leagues like Gibson, Guild and D'Angelico but already the HB-35 is there alongside, no, dare I say AHEAD of an Epiphone with non USA pups.?The fingerboard was a bit dry but nothing a dash of lemon oil couldn't fix. You may want to polish the frets.

Overall: I'm not a beginner. I have owned / still own Gibsons, Fenders, Ibanez, Peerless, custom built guitars - the works! The HB-35 plus may be inexpensive but it is not a "cheap" guitar. It's a great instrument. I would not be at all embarrassed to show up at a gathering of Gibsons with it.?Five stars. Don't hesitate?*****

Harley Benton HB-35Plus Lemon

What can I say that hasn't already been said about this excellent(in my humble opinion)guitar.

It looks the business,great finish lovely flamed Maple top and great feel to the neck.Its fatter than I am used to,but by no means a baseball bat feels great.

Fret work is very good no fret buzz and through my Fender amp the pick ups sound spot on!You can lots of different sound out of it with tone and the push/pull switches for single coil mode.

For the price I paid with free shipping to the Uk,witch is crazy its a no brainer!!!

In summary would highly recommend this guitar,dont usually do ratings on websites,but felt the need to this time as I was so impressed with the guitar and the service.

Compared to Epiphone this is actually better

This is a very nice guitar for the price. I checked out an Epiphone 335 locally and they are identical. The pickups were a bit lacking, so I went to Guitar Fetish here in the states and put some new humbuckers in it. Sounds fantastic for the money, even after upgrading the pickups and wiring I still have very little invested in the guitar. I will buy HB's again.

Great guitar, amazing sound, with just minor quality issues

First let me say, that it is quite an amazing guitar for that price. It sounds brilliantly, offers a number of features (like the possibility to change from humbucker to single coil on bridge and neck pickups separately) and looks stunning from far away. The wood on the body is much thicker, than on my previous Ibanez Artcore, which for me is a plus, as it makes the guitar much more durable.

However, there are some minor quality issues - all plastic materials are quite cheap. This is especially evident in the case of the pick-guard, which is a complete rubbish. It is utterly ugly, came scratched straight from the box and had strange, cheap shine to it. When I took it off the guitar, I noticed a small dent in the lacquer of a yellowish-beige colour, which was a shame, because overall the finish is really nice. The tone and volume controls look quite nice from aside, but when examined closely, they could be improved a bit, which also applies to their precision (some of them are more loose than the others). These were much better on a similarly priced Ibanez.

Apart from that, this guitar was exactly what I was looking for at that price range, and the above-mentioned issues are really minor compared to the number of amazing features that it offers. I would buy it again.

Gorgeous guitar

This is a beautiful looking guitar and finished to an excellent standard.

Compares very well to its competition and has a nice fretboard which plays very well.

Fretboard needed oiling as usual and as all guitars once acclimatized to the conditions stay in tune well.

Although I retune any guitar I play before starting a session.

At this price point there is nothing that can touch it.

Buy one.You won't be dissappointed.