Harley Benton HB-35Plus Metallic Blue 5-stars Reviews

My first ever semi acoustic

Exceeded my expectations! Well built, lovely sound, nice aesthetics too.. can’t complain one bit about this magnificent piece!

Outstanding

After picking up the guitar again after many years, i was searching for an in between to cover both electric and acoustic and came across this beaut, looks fantastic, sounds even better and the price you pay for this is unreal, would whole heartedly recommend it to anybody

Top Guitar

I've been playing guitar for many years and even joined Showaddywaddy in 2018-2020. I've owned many guitars some great guitars some not so great. I took a punt on this as it was an incredibly good deal. I received far more than I bargained for. The guitar once I set it up played beautifully. The tones from the humbucking Rosswell pickups having the pull switch to split them was incredibly versatile. From smooth jazz, rock and blues tones this guitar can do them all. The finish was flawless and it looks really cool. I've had no trouble with the tuners as it holds tune very well. This is one to buy. Well done Harley Benton on an incredible deal.

Amazing

I’ve owned 4 epiphone dots and this is way better than all of them. Love this guitar

Perfect value for money

Translate to English: Excellent guitar with flawless design and a beautiful metallic finish that will transport you and the audience back to nostalgic times. The composite wood neck is comfortable, enabling consistent tone and quick playing. The knobs aren't designed for ultra-fine adjustments during performance, but once set, they offer a quite decent and enjoyable range of sounds.

Amazing instrument..no different with really expensive "335" s

I bought two, and I have a gibson es 335

Stunning guitar at any price

Can't believe the value on this. Arrived in perfect condition in less than a week to the US. Sounds and looks incredible. Look forward to future purchases!

Excellent value for money

Very happy with the purchase, exceptional quality, and value for money for the price range.

Great Guitar

This is a great guitar which is easy to play!

Although some slight imperfections these are very minor and are not noticeable unless you are trying to find them.

This guitar is very versatile and you can get some great tones. It is comfortable and came out of the box (that was packaged brilliantly) already in tune! Definitely a fantastic purchase I would highly recommend to anyone!

There are no words to adequately describe how amazing this guitaris. I am reluctant to tell them how good it is for fear of pric

The sound of this guitar is easily comparable to all of the top band names making this style. Shhh, lets keep it a secret.

Unbelievable Guitar for the price!!

The pickups needed adjusting, but that was it! Sound and feel is just as good if not BETTER than a Gibson 335! My only negative is that the fret board at the very end where it meets the body and neck pickup was rough. Looked like it hit the sander by accident.

An absolute steal

I've playing this for a month and I like it over my 1k euro Les paul special.

The fretwork is amazing, the neck feels smooth, it's loud enough that it's satisfying to play when ont plugged in, and with an amp it's very versatile, from bluesy tones to even some metal stuff.

Last but not least, it looks GREAT.

Incredible Value, stunning aesthetics

I bought the HB 35+ metallic blue a few months ago. In my collection I have a Rickenbacker 360, a Gibson songwriter deluxe and an American Strat as well as a few miscellaneous great guitars . I have never been so impressed with a guitar that cost less than 10% of many in my collection. Which brings to mind the expression “the best guitar is the one you pick up and play” . Believe it or not this Harley Benton is my new go to guitar. It’s super comfortable to play came well set up right out of the box after a couple of minor adjustments is every bit as enjoyable as my much more expensive guitars.I have just ordered another HP and highly recommend them to all my musician friends. I think it’s true that the days of paying outrageous amounts of money for brand-name instrument are over and Harley Benton is leading the charge. Congratulations guys keep up the good work. A loyal customer in Canada

Looks even better in real life

I bought this guitar as I always wanted a strat, a Les Paul and a 335 in my collection. Mostly to recreate the sounds of the music I like to play. My wife and I played as a two piece pop and classic rock. I got my strat 15 years ago and gigged with it extensively. Shortly after that I got my LP but it was too heavy to play for an entire gig. I got the Harley Benton recently and if It had been available to me 15 years ago I am sure it would have been my main gigging guitar. Some of my favourite guitarists are Johnny Marr, Billy Duffy, Scotty Moore and George Harrison .The HB35 gives me some great tones. It looks and sounds amazing. I have only ever had standard pick ups in my guitars but these Roswell’s are really impressive.

The guitar has a sweet musical jangle to it, which is what I expected from a hollow body.

I have only been playing it out of the box and the intonation is pretty good. The action is a little high but that’s an easy fix. The fretboard is unusual as it is that pao ferro. There’s nothing wrong with it, it’s just different from my rosewood fretboards. The coil tap is an interesting feature that actually does give a strat like tone, although I don’t know if I would use it that often. Overall even my wife and daughter could not believe what I paid for this guitar, my wife even said it looks great as decoration in the house. They also loved the sound of it through my little Fender practice amp.

I am so impressed with the build quality that I am going to indulge in Harley Benton’s paisley telecaster

Highly Recommended

Overall I am very happy with this guitar. I looks, feels and sounds like the real deal.

I've not had chance to fully test the sound yet but first impressions are that it sounds great.

Is it perfect? No, but for the price is amazing. In regard to manufacturing quality, there are a few minor paint blemishes, the pickups will need some adjustment and there is some glue residue inside (seen through the upper F-hole) but I can easily remove that. It is advertised as having D'Addario string but I don't think they are (as they don't have the typical colour coding).

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The updated color of an already excellent guitar. She is my favorite at the moment. A wide variety of play thanks to the pickup selector. The sound itself with my equipment sounds quite warm and rich. The look and feel of a guitar is worth buying. It lies well in the hands, in itself is not the easiest. You can go a long way with a guitar like this, even if you've been playing for a long time. I constantly find more and more new features in it that I really like. Probably, many are repelled by the glued neck, the guitar needs proper handling. I am very pleased with the purchase, especially at this price. I hope that Harley Benton will surprise me more.

A pleasant surprise

This is my first HB guitar, and my first budget guitar, too. I've bought it to try a 335 shape out and see for myself what's the hype is about. I've been playing for more than ten years now (though I'm a bassist first and foremost), over the years I've had many expensive instruments - Gibsons, Fenders, what have you, so my expectations were set high. And so far, I'm very impressed with this axe, I like it a lot. There's some room for improvement, more on this below.

It's a very attractive, visually striking instrument. The contrast between the blue metallic top and the yellow of the back and sides looks wonderful. It looks much better in person, the photos don't really do it justice. Here also lies its most obvious flaw for me - the painted binding is made sloppily, with paint bleed and blemish here and there, and that's about the only disappointing factor about this guitar for me. Still, you can't see it at arms length, and the models with cream plastic binding should be better in this regard.

The guitar feels nice in my hands. The neck is comfortably thick yet not so thick as a vintage spec Les Paul, the fretwork is pretty impressive for the price - all the edges are leveled properly, and while the frets could use some polishing, it's nowhere as bad as the reviews led me to believe. Fixing that is a simple quick job with a dremel tool, masking tape and some polishing paste anyway. The nut is made of Nubone and made well. The volume knobs are fine, but a bit tricky to pull out. The tone knobs are very stiff, but workable. The pickup selector switch could be better, it's not a Switchcraft one I'm used to but come on, give it a break - for the price it's fine. There's no scratchiness or anything about it, it's just a bit too clunky for my taste. Changing it won't be too hard either.

It balances well both sitting and standing, and it's weighs 3,7 kg.

The unbranded 16:1 ratio tuners are pretty good, too - they're firm and tight, feel good and the guitar stays in tune well. The bridge has rolled off edges and doesn't hurt your hand, it's easy to adjust - I had to tweak the intonation a bit.

The sound is perfectly good. It's warm and round, with a lot of low end, and you can change it quite a lot with all the combinations of pickups and coil splits. My favourite is the middle position with split bridge pickup, it brings more top end to the sound. Add some dirt, and it still holds its own.

So, the pros:

- beautiful, vibrant looks

- nice sound with a lot of flexibility

- feels good overall

- quality hardware

- set up well out of the box

The cons:

- nitpicking about paint blemishes

- tone knobs are too stiff

- pickup switch is a bit clunky

- control cavity needs some tidying up

- frets could use some polishing

Overall, I'm impressed with Harley Benton. It's a damn good guitar for the price! I can hardly believe the bang for the buck ratio you can get these days, wish I've had something like that when I was a kid. Whether or not this guitar stays with me, I'm not sure yet, but so far it's been good.

I'm an acoustic player who wanted to try electric. (funk, blues, latin jazz kind of thing)

I already own a HB CST-24, but try as I might I could not love it. (i feel more towards the heavy distorsion, shred kind of thing)

Got the HB-35 Plus a couple of days ago.

My feelings:

Stunning.

A guitar meant to be played.

It's not perfect, it's got soul.

If you want to play blues and you also appreciate something resembling an acoustic guitar neck and are used to Les Paul weight... this is for you.

PROs:

- fretwork (smooth fret ends, polished)

- setup was great (a bit too high for my taste, but great)

- intonation: spot on, couple of cents here and there.

- looks better than in pictures.

- f-holes look nice and polished

- binding: some of the lines aren't 100% perfect (really, it's a plus, ads character)

Niggles:

- small lacquer cracks (underneath) , where the body joins the guitar.

- frets need to be polished (sometimes makes scratchy noises when bending)

- microscopic specks caught underneath the lacquer on the back side

This is an awesome guitar

first thing is, the price. For €249 to get a guitar this good should be illegal! The fretwork was great out of the box, the finish was excellent, playability was really good and I love it.

I would absolutely recommend this guitar and I'm so impressed with Harley Benton's latest models.

Beautiful guitar!

This guitar looks so amazing the fisnish was flawless.

It is the best looking guitar i have.

I like the pickups they fit the guitar, not too hot but stil has some bite when you turn it up. Only con is the coil split is ok, not great but its ok. i dont mind since im mostly just using it with full humbucker but its nice to have.

I was not the biggest fan of gold hardware when i orderd it but when i saw it in real life it looks great and was the perfect combination for this guitar.

All in all a fantastic guitar for the price. Im actually blown away by what you get for the price!