Harley Benton HB JA-60 OW Reviews

So much fun!

This is my fifth Harley Benton guitar, and its definitely a keeper. Arrived in western USA very quickly (like 3 days!!!) and in pristine condition. Also, intonation was spot-on, and it was practically already in tune. The finish is completely flawless, the fretboard is well-dressed and comfortable, the volume and tone pots each have full range of sweep....I honestly cant find a single fault. Oh, you know that plastic film that covers the pickguard on new guitars? Well, I peeled this one off and the pickguard was still kinda hazy and dull. Turns out there were two layers of film. Peeled the second off to reveal a gorgeous, deep, and natural looking pattern.

Plugged in, the guitar has a warm, yet snappy, spanky, twangy clean tone. Even the slightest touch of gain adds a really nice breakup with clarity and warmth. Not as edgy as my telecaster, not as bright as my Stratocaster. Just a cool, mellow, vintage tone, better than I expected. Add some fuzz distortion or dirty overdrive and you're instantly into Radiohead meets 60's rock territory. Super fun guitar! If you're reading this, you know you need one! Do it.

ROARRR GUITAR!

THE SOUND IS REALLY REALLY ROAR!!

Great Guitar, Especially for the Price

My first Harley Benton, being in the US we don't get these. Bought one to try out, I was very surprised at the quality and the sound. Love it and fun to play.

A very nice guitar!

I own a lot of guitars, but this is, for the time beeing, my favorite guitar. As I always do with new guitars, I check the frets, neck, intonation etc, and this guitar did not require much work.

I keep it within reach in the living room, and plays it all the time. The guitar is very comfortable and sounds good.

The OW color is nice, and gives a vintage vibe.

Just go for it. You will not regret bying this guitar.

Just Buy It. Wow.

I'm not gonna write 4 paragraphs about this guitar. It is gorgeous, the build quality is great, it sounds as good as my 1-2 thousand dollar guitars and its damn near free! People will always nitpick. I love this guitar, period.

One note, there were TWO thin protective plastic sheets on my pickguard. I took one off and thought it looked OK. As I kept playing it seemed something was wrong. Turned out there was a 2nd layer of sheeting. Never seen that. I peeled off the 2nd layer and the pickguard just popped with red and pearly beauty. I think some folks haven't noticed the 2nd sheet of plastic. Buy this guitar. it is worthy of a price tag 5 times greater at least.

Great looking and sounding, brilliant value

Absolutely love this guitar, it plays fantastic with a lovely neck and action. It needed a little setting up to make it just right. I would recommend polishing the frets and adjusting the pickup height to suit.

Surprised how good mine came.

String action was low enough when it arrived, didn't find any need to lower the bridge nor file the nutslots any further.

Frets are well rounded, nothing that cuts, neck has a nice C shape, not to slim nor to fat, tuners are ok too.

Bridge intonation was perfect, takes string bends without issues too, have another HB where the knife edges broke strings as soon I started to bend, using another bridge on that one now.

The pups sound more like JA pups and not like P90's, so I think these are Roswell JA's which also makes sense for the model, output seems to be around medium, so they work pretty well even with the harshest Fuzz pedals.

Didn't inspect the electronics any further, but everything works well.

Only things I might change in time on this guitar, stop tail to tremolo, roller bridge and locking tuners.

Outstanding guitar!

I can't believe how good this guitar is for the price. Looks great, feels great, sounds great. I had to adjust the top E string bridge position by a couple of twists to correct the intonation but otherwise no adjustments were required. The only tiny criticism is that the neck feels a little dry but that's easy to fix with a little polish and playing time. Highly recommended.

Harley Benton HB JA-60 OW

This guitar is good for the price. Nice color. The neck of the guitar is straight. Frets do not scratch hands. Overall a comfortable guitar. Perfect for those who decide to start practicing and also for those who already know something. I have been playing Guitar for over 15 years. Has different guitars. I sold many guitars, but I will leave this one.

Absolutely Fun to Play

I just love playing this guitar and I don't know why exactly. It just feels good, plays well, and sounds good. Sounds like a guitar much more expensive than a $200. So you have an idea of the type of guitars I like to play, I really love playing my '86 Fender pink-paisley Telecaster. That Tele is my most fav and this guitar is now #2.

5 Stars despite not being 5 Stars

I'm giving this guitar 5 stars because of value. The frets need polishing but were crowned nicely. The fretboard, and body are nice... the pickup tone in middle position rival any guitar in history under $200 (except maybe the TE-52)

Harley Benton HB JA-60 OW

Bought this instrument for home use. I was looking for guitars of similar shape and came across this one. Overall, implemented

pretty high quality. Well colored, comfortable and straight neck. The frets are not polished, but well rolled up. The first string peg is very hard to spin. All electronics work, except for the switch (damaged during transportation or was like that). P-90 type pickups give a peculiar sound of the instrument. I changed the strings right away. I really like to hold this guitar in my hands and play it, despite the small flaws.

Beautiful guitar

Very beautiful guitar, high quality painted, cream color, slightly darker than in the photographs. The frets do not stick out, the neck is even, the strings are about 1.5 mm at the 12th fret of the 6th string and 1.1mm at the 1st string. Of the shortcomings, some strings ring, even open ones, I hope this can be fixed) The sound is not as clear as I expected, but I think there is a problem with the settings of the combo, I play Orange Crush 12

I use google translate, sorry for mistakes :)

Better than I expected

The JA-60 is my fourth Harley Benton guitar and maybe the best of them - and that's saying a lot. Excellent fit, finish and playability. The Roswell P-90 pickups are very open and responsive with a nice midrange growl. This guitar does a great job of filling the gap between a single coil twanger and a humbucking screamer. Love it!

A Robert Smith Dream

This guitar is light, easy to play, and sounds like a dream (well, for the most part). The pickups make it sound somewhere a Gretsch and Strat with a jangly quality typically delivered by a Tele. Very nice guitar. For all of you Cure/Smiths/Echo and the Bunnymen fans (especially Cure), this guitar produces that PERFECT 80s sound. Also great for generating that noisy My Bloody Valentine sonic dissonant blur (also good for Blur songs, by the way).

The minus? Well, there's a buzz that might drive you crazy. But that's the Jazzmaster for you: they're inherently "buzzy." But, if you don't care too much, then this Alternative Axe is a good buy.

Enjoy. It's worth the price!

Surprising. Unbelievably good overall quality for the price.

Pros:

+ It came reasonably well set up.

I only had to raise the action a little bit and intonate one string.

After that, the intonation was perfect.

+ It feels good.

+ It sounds very nice.

+ The finish looks amazing. The neck is beautiful. It looks like roasted maple. Both the neck and the bound Pau Ferro fretboard look amazing. The grains are beautiful. Everything looks perfect.

Cons:

- There are a few of tiny specks on the neck. Virtually invisible and barely felt but they are there. Some light sanding will probably fix that.

- The frets are a bit scratchy. They need either a polish or enough playing to smooth it out.

- The electromechanical components feel like they are not "worn in". The switch and the jack are too tight, and the pots are a bit scratchy. I hope they will feel better after some use.

- Pickup height adjustment screws are too tight. Like they are too big for the holes.

Very pleasant surprise

I was alittle nervous about buying an off brand guitar I can't play first, from a web site. I'm glad I did. I love this guitar. It has a couple of cons. The tuners are serviceable, but not as smooth as I like, and the pickguard color is not very eye-pleasing to me. The body color and the fretboard color make up for it though. The packing for shipment is maybe alittle weak, the pickup switch on mine got destroyed in shipping. I replaced it, no big deal. Now the pro's. The neck on this guitar is well above it's price range. Narrow nut, thin 'C' shape, no sharp fret ends, no high frets, and the nut slots are perfect. With the sixth string fretted at the second fret, there is maybe a nanometer between the string and the first fret. The neck is almost, but not quite flat, and no buzz anywhere. The neck was like this out of the box. I have never played this type of pickups before, but these sound pretty good thru my Katana Mini practice amp, and plugged straight into my 20 watt tube combo, they sound beautiful. All in all, yes, for a lot more money, you can buy a better guitar, but this guitar is a high value for the price, and they very much got the important parts right. I'll be playing it for years.

Good sound, bad quality

I needed a cheap guitar to take to the office for some lunch time practice, so I didn't expect much. I'm not going to talk about cosmetics here, in this price range it doesn't really matter.

Good things first: pickups sound very good, not just "for the price". And that's the only good thing about it.

Now bad things. Fretwork on mine it was horrible even for the price, there were literally no single fret without sharp edges. Another show-stopper is its balance. This is something that wasn't mentioned in any reviews: it's neck-diving like hell and if you don't use a strap then you need to support it with your fretting hand. This makes it feel very uncomfortable.

All in all, my only mistake was that I haven't returned it immediately, hoping that I could deal with/ignore those things. Then it was too late, so it's just gathering dust in the corner.

My New Favorite

I'm just an at home player, and still a beginner at that! I can say with certainty that I love this guitar.

This was the first Harley Benton I ordered (along with an SC-450 Plus) and to be honest I was anticipating the arrival of the SC-450 more. While I haven't played the SC-450 yet (it was broken on arrival and the replacement should be arriving any day now), I have fallen in love with this beautiful looking and sounding guitar. The guitar is immaculate to look at, the fit and finish blow away my Squire Strat, and played beautiful right out of the box. I didn't even change the strings. The pickups have a lovely bite to them, with the warmth and sustain of humbuckers and the clarity and brightness of single coils. The tuners are smooth and hold very well with only minor tuning needed occasionally, despite the stock strings. I haven't even put graphite in the nut slots yet. Every time I go to play I find myself grabbing the JA-60, despite having 6 other guitars to chose from. I'm waiting on the arrival of 3 more HB's and if they are even close to as good as this one, even more will follow!

Great guitar for the price.

Guitar sounds fantastic, and plays great.

Only thing I needed to do was clean up the fret work a bit. Filed and rounded the fret ends. They were a little rough. Still, about 45 minutes worth of work took this from a good guitar to great.

If you want to get in to modding guitars, this is a great, inexpensive base to start from.