Harley Benton HB-35 CH Vintage Series Reviews

Classy!

You simply cant beat the value you're getting for this beautifully crafted and sounding guitar.

LOVE this guitar

Looks,plays and sound amazing. Cannot find anything wrong with it , period.

Great for the price

Really fun to play, beautiful and sounds good. No it doesn't compare to a 3000 Gibson but you get a great guitar for the price you are paying . Recommend to anyone.

Good guitar, but bad electronic

Frankly speaking, I don't really share the general enthusiasm for this guitar. I agree that in terms of manufacturing, it is perfect: the strings lie low, do not buzzing, the neck is straight and comfortable, the frets do not protrude, the tuning pegs are smooth and doesn’t has any backlash, the guitar holds tune well, the pickup selection switch working distinctly, generally the appearance is impeccable, I would say that the instrument looks much more beautiful even than its original (Gibson- 335). But then the disadvantages became - mainly they are related to electronic, and more precisely - to pickups (humbuckers). They are bad. They generate background noise (how is that possible?!) It is well known that the biggest advantage of humbuckers is absence of background noise, but here they make buzzing noise like ordinary single coil pickups. Sound, which produced by these humbuckers are OK – it is suitable for performing saturated (“meat”) soloing with overdrive, or distortion, but these pickups absolutely inappropriate for any funk, rhythm-n-blues or any other “speed” styles – the sound is very muddiness and rumble. When I’ve tried to correct this sound with the help of EQ – sound became offensively harshness, and background noise became more. To summarizing: definitely this guitar needs customization - it's absolutely necessary to change pickups (as well, as appropriate potentiometers), but of course it will much increase the guitar cost/ price.

Great Guitar for the Value

For the money you really can’t do much better, generally flawless except from a small issue with a saddle that was quickly rectified.

HB-35 CH vintage

I’m so impressed with this guitar. It’s so far my favourite Harley Benton guitar and it’s actually my favourite guitar of all my guitars. Holds the tuning , sounds great, feels great. Excellent craftsmanship with decent hardware and just looks beautiful. I’m glad I stuck with the vintage series.

He is delighted

Bought for a friend who is in poor health but this made him smile and he's delighted its his go to guitar

Superb Guitar

This is an amazingly good guitar. It is very reasonably priced, yet the quality of it's build and incredible sound is better than many more expensive makes.

Great deal

Anyone looking for a guitar that covers , jazz,blues,funk and soul. I highly recommend due to this. First off pleasantly surprised by neck and how comfortable it is to play , alongside the intonation is really nice and sturdy, note that I've done a few mods myself just for myself. Overall for the price I'm happy and satisfied anyone not looking to break the bank or spend alot .

Bargain!

I bought this guitar because I really like the hagstrom viking ii and this one looks a lot like it. Im a big elvis fan so this guitar is perfect with a very good price and amazing quality.

Fret ends only complaint

It’s heavy but I love it. Fret ends are my only complaint. Not a deal breaker but will prevent me from purchasing another guitar from Harley Benton. I’d pay more for polished fret ends.

Amazing for this prize

Perfect quality and very good sound! It's a stuning quitar not only for beginers! Absolytely recomendly!!!

I like it!

The guitar i have received (manufactured late 2020) is inspired by 335 guitar style. It is quite big and not extra light (compared to LP). The body is standard laminated maple with scarf jointed neck with comfortable C shape. The neck feels chunkier, than the shape used on HB450+. Upper fret reach is fine, but it does not have the super accessible (HB-450+) neck joint shape. The binding is nicely cut.

The pick-guard is LP style and is probably better than the previous version, but I believe, that these guitars look best without one (and red marker can help to hide the drilled holes). I was a little afraid about the screw from the pickguard denting the top (because the pickguard seems to be placed quite low) - I have found a really small mark form the screw but only visible form close up. Little bit worse was uneven lacquer under the top pickguard screw – it was screwed on with some wood dust on still soft lacquer and the lacquer around the screw-hole is (sadly) a little wobbly.

The hardware is quite good. The guitar is equipped (produced late 2020) with standard die-cast tuning machines that holds tuning, probably Sung-il BM 003 bridge and Sung-il TS 001 tailpiece and unbranded “vintage-style” humbuckers (ceramics magnet). The quality of the HW is better than the HW used on HB-450+ line of guitars. I have experimented and replaced the ceramics magnets with Alnico V and it was a nice surprise with more dynamic sound. The tailpiece was a really tight fit.

The wiring is surprisingly fine, but for those who want to upgrade the electronics, there is multiple small “catches” that could surprise you. Positioning the switch like on LP style requires quite long wires that leads to the switch (under bridge pickup), compared to similar style guitars with switch near the knobs. The knobs are oriented differently – bridge volume and tone are shifted behind the neck knobs (in playing position) so if you are used to play LP style guitar, you might be little confused. The original output jack has a little bit longer thread, than is usual, so it is possible to screw it though the pretty thick layer of wood. Standard sized output jack could barely reach to the surface (it is like a 1-2mm difference). And of course – putting new switch and other components into place through the “hook” holes is a real pain.

Otherwise it is an amazing guitar that I really enjoy to play. Great looks, playable out of the box and with nice acoustic sound.

Great guitar Отличная гитара

The guitar is assembled well, it sounds acceptable. There is, however, one unpleasant moment - a small crack in the varnish at the junction of the neck and the guitar body. This defect does not affect the sound in any way and is almost not noticeable, but if you look closely, it is noticeable. Despite this, I am happy with the guitar, very happy. The guitar arrived in Russia well packed. From the moment of the order to the receipt of it by me, almost three weeks have passed, but this, believe me, is even very normal. In general, Tomann is happy with the guitar and the store. Thanks.

HB35 Vintage is great!

I wanted a 335 style guitar for a good price and great sound so I went for the HB35 Vintage. It’s a real beauty and plays very nicely with a great neck. It’s the type of guitar you can justify getting a few more of in various finishes as part of a collection.

Great guitar and feel really nice

The frets need to be polish and condition the fretboard. The pickguard is really horrible and the pickups are a like high output, but do not feedback.

Love this!

I ended up modding it a bit but what a great modding platform. The neck is just right!

Fantastic Guitar

Lovely guitar, well made, very happy with my purchase

Looks and sounds the part

Purchased as my first ever electric guitar, and was surprised by how well it was constructed, and how good it sounded. Have also seen nothing but good reviews anywhere else. Highly recommended.

A very solid guitar for the price!

This guitar is a wonderful 335-style guitar that looks beautiful and sounds great. It's a great bedroom jammer, but could probably be used for smaller gigs as well. The combination of tone controls and pickup selector give great tonal flexibility, from a clean jazz tone to overdriven blues/rock tones. It came relatively well set up; the only issues on the guitar I received were small fit and finish issues, and the frets didn't come 100% leveled, although they were pretty close. The fret edges had some work done so that there were no burrs or really sharp ends, but there were some tooling marks on the binding as a result. Overall, I am very happy with this guitar, and you certainly can't beat the price for what you get!