Harley Benton HB JA-60 OW Reviews

a great instrument

I was sceptical, but am a believer now. I was very happy to get this guitar in my hands. After reading several reviews while looking for a guitar, I went with this one and am pleasantly surprised at the incredible value. Highly Recommended, you won't be disappointed at this price point.

What an Awesome guitar!

This is an awesome guitar as long as you understand what it is. This is not a Jazzmaster, but an offset with P-90's. I also have a Classic Vibe Tele, a Fender Player Series Duo-Sonic, and a HB ST-62, and this is by far my favorite guitar. It is an amazing value, and the p-90's are fantastic. I also love the vintage look. I do not know why there are not more reviews of this guitar because it is fantastic.

Shockingly awesome

I bought this as a bit of a “whatever” thing. It’s now my favorite Harley Benton. The action and intonation arrived flawless. The fretboard was in dire need of lemon oil, but that’s not a big deal. The pickups sound fabulous.

Great guitar

I was looking to add Jazzmaster style guitar to my collection, went with this one and was not dissapointed. The main thing is sound, these pickups are somewhere in the middle between P90 and SC, cleans and a bit dirty sounds are very good. The pickups are "reverse-wound, reverse-polarity", so no hum in middle position on high gain settings. Craftmanship is fine, the guitar smells like a jar of paint, for some reason, but apart from that all is fine.

Great guitar

Great buy for a modding platform. Good and solid feeling. Plays awesome. Neck feels really solid in hand. Stock pickups are decent but I swapped them for some Lollars. Was missing a side marking dot on arrival. There is some binding bleed on the neck by the body. Also some weird kinda clear coast in the same spot. Overall worth it but could've been better.

Absolutely brilliant!

Really, I gave it a lot of thought, and I should not have. You can play anything on this guitar. It is very comfortable, beautiful and well made - pickups are superb. Can't understand how this is so inexpensive!

This Benton is sick.

Nice jazzmaster. Wonderful design with matching headstock, nice fretwork (i thought it will be worse), cool fat singlecoils. Sounds more twangy than my hss fender mexican strat est.2001. This guitar is not for heavy music. It's perfect for jazzy vibes. Tunomatic bridge makes me feel something like very light les paul in my hands :.D creative. I don't like tuners, but they're fine, they work, i'll change them btw. For that price, guys... What could be better?

One hellofa guitar..

I was looking for a good P90 option a couple of years back, because at the time I had really never tried a guitar with such pickups. And the quality and price amze me to this day. I upgraded the tuners (to Harley Benton Parts Locking Tuners 6L Black) and sanded the neck a little to make it smoother and faster. At arrival I polished fretends and had to level a couple of frets. No problems after this.

1. Quality is great. Perfect, fast neck that fit my hands like gloves. Stable - always in tune, even with rough playing.

2. Sounds are great, with balaced pickups. Tone pots also great with wide response making the guitar being more tham good.

Have owned this 2+ years now and I play this more than good guitars that cost a lot more. What HB guitars have teached me is that "cheap" doesnt always mean worse or not playable as affordable guitars 10+ years ago

lovely

lovely to look at but more importantly lovely to play and sounds great ! I had seen reviews of people not liking the thickness(shape) of the neck but in my opinion it's difference to my other guitars necks makes me want to play it more, feels great. so glad I went for this alternative to the norm(Strats,tele's or les Paul's) a winner !

Kinda looks like a Jazzmaster......sounds like a jazzmaster......

Ok, so going from top to bottom......

the tuners were really tight to turn, but some lubrication helped. It sometimes takes a bit of a turn before they engage properly. The tuning posts are much slimmer than on my TE90 so they look a little cheaper.

The nut seems OK, I did give it some lubrication too, just in case.

I love the neck. it has a lovely finish, it is smooth, no sharp frets because of the nice binding. I gave the fingerboard some oil.

The offset body is smaller and thinner than a Fender or Squier Jazzmaster, which could make it look cheap (but then of course it is!) The body is also very light, which I like. The bridge is a tune-o-matic. It too looks a bit cheap and there are a couple of string saddles that I have had to move as far forward as I can but they are still slightly out of intonation.

The pickups are Roswell Jazzmaster style pickups, not smaller P90s like on the older models. My son, who is a producer and multi-instrumentalist, had a go and said it sounded better than his Classic Vibe Jazzmaster and he likes his Classic Vibe Jazzmaster better than the Fender ones so that is high praise for the sound indeed. He liked the colour, size and weight too.

All in all, if you are looking for an entry into the Jazzmaster world, then go for one of these. You might want to upgrade tuners and bridge later down the line but if you like the Jazzmaster sound, the pickups are fine.

For the price, what have you got to lose!

Shut your eyes and tell me can tell a difference...

I buy lots of guitars that are less expensive. They run the gamut from mediocre to hey not too bad. When I first got the Harley Benton in my hand i felt like i had robbed someone. Shut your eyes and you'll be hard pressed to tell the difference between this and the real McCoy... I don't get how they do it. Great guitar. I cherish it.

Fantastic Guitar

I started playing guitar in 1965...I have had all the great classic electric guitars over the years...I have built and repaired guitars for years...I was so impressed with this guitar I have ordered a LP Jr style...the fit and finish are excellent... the neck and fretwork are a thing of beauty...all the hardware are top notch....pickups are amazing... you get 3 wonderful tones....well balanced between the 3 positions.... wonderful, very inspirational sounds between the 3 pickups....I have a 2000 Fender Jazzmaster that I am putting up for sale as I like this one so much...Love the color....Great job Harley Benton.

Absolutely in love with this guitar

It is so stylish - coffee and creme color. Neck is satin finished and has beutiful color. Finish is flawless. It is need to polish frets and the hardware (hardware has some minor stains) to be ideal. Strings also has some visible rust but it is the subject of replacement anyway. Tuners are of nickel color - it is a bit "yellowish". I like this nickel color more than chrome. Kluson style tuners are not my favourite but they do operate well and hold the tunning.

The guitar is very light and comfortable to play. In comparison with my LP this is like feather. And much more comfortable to play sitting than LP.

The neck is quite thick and I'd prefer to have thinner one. But it is the matter of taste.

The sound is powerful and clean.

The action is on high side - it should be lowered.

Stunningly Good

I read a lot of reviews, and watched several videos, on this guitar before I took the gamble. I was not remotely disappointed.

Context: I've been playing guitar for about 20 years, and have owned and played a pretty good range of mid-high end guitars. One thing I've noticed in the last 5 or so years is the steady increase in quality of the cheap guitars, such as Squire, Laguna, and of course, Harley Benton. That said, this thing rises above even the best of the cheap "great" guitars

What I got was a guitar that was still 90% still in tune despite a trip across the ocean to the US and through a series of package processing facilities. It needed very little setup (could be none at all for some people), except for a small change of the action, and felt phenomenal.

The sound that came from my speakers after plugging it in and playing it for the first time was far beyond what I ever would have expected from a guitar at this price point. The overall sound maintained an excellent bottom-end without becoming muddy, while the high-end sounds (notes and natural sound of the strings) were bright without becoming shrill. I can honestly say I probably will not replace the pickups, which is first for me as far as factory pickups go.

The electronics are solid - no noise when turning knobs or flipping the pickup selector, and the jack stays pretty solid.

I have now gigged with this guitar several times over and found the tuning to be extremely stable, even in extreme temperature changes. My favorite example is when I took it out of my air conditioned car onto an outdoor stage when the temperature was 95F degrees and the humidity was about 80%. My ESP LTD EC-1000 Deluxe slipped out of tune a couple times in that show, but the Harley Benton did not - it held its tuning throughout the entire performance, was still in tune the next day.

Overall, the only thing I would change is the tuners, which are split-shaft for string-locking. They definitely work well, but they are a pain to work with when re-stringing. I will likely end up switching to proper locking tuners in the near future.

Very good

Sounds good ! So much Playability !

What a true Jazzmaster should be

Awesome guitar for clean and crunchy sounds. Looks sick, sounds sick, built with decent quality. I can recommend it without any hesitations. Maybe will order some other HB instruments in visible future.

Pluses:

- Overall look. Cool vintagy painting, binding. Even pau-ferro fretboard matches guitar nicely.

- Weight of instrument and wood resonating. Even unplugged sounds loud and narly. Can assume that materials are quite good. Back of the neck without too much finishing feels great.

- Pickups. These are no ordinary P90, more like fat-wound single-coils. Sounds spanky and bright. Even unique.

- Overall built quality. Truss-rod was setup properly. Good set of strings, sounds fresh from the box.

- Price. Nuff said. 120 euros ...

Minuses:

- Very fat and narrow neck profile. Really feels like bassball bat. I'm kinda used to it, but the neck is not gonna fit for ibanezy shredders.

- Vintage tuners. Would prefer standard grover tuners. But they look cool, do the job properly.

- The last frets are not rounded properly. Maybe it's just my only guitar's issue. But it's not that bad.

- Pickup height adjustment is quite difficult. Intonation wasn't setup properly from the box, string height was quite excessive. Fretboard was quite dry, needed lemon oil. But these issues are not fatal, but quite fixable.

Poor qc, but overall good

came with 3-way switch broken however packaging was not damaged at all and switch itself had extra styrofoam attached to it so I think guitar did pass qc without anyone noticing completely broken switch (it was literally broken off)

pros:

how guitar looks and sounds you won't get for that money for any other guitar I guarantee

cons:

poor qc

HB ja 60 OW

thank s Harley Benton for this masterpiece.

I m very glad that I bought it !

so it has a little bit dirty pieces on edging but it is wonderful

very good color

so I very like it !!!

good guitar

Beat expectations

The playability and sound of this guitar is great. I love how the neck feels in my hands, as well as the overall look. Roswell pickups were unknown to me but is the biggest surprise and are underrated. Would recommend to anyone at any level. I just purchase a few more HB's. Worth every penny!!

Amazing alternative for jazzmaster

No alternative for this price.

Guitar is not tuned.