Harley Benton TE-40 TBK Deluxe Series Reviews

For it's price totally worth it. Good: playability excellent, finish amazing, looks superb. Bad: Tuners suck, bridge pick up not the best.

Excellent Value for Money

This isn't going to be an extensive review, just an overview of my early impressions. I bought this guitar because I'd hear a lot about Harley Bentons and I wanted to try one out, and this was cheap enough to take the punt. I hardly put it down since I got it. Sounds great, plays well and looks beautiful. The electronics are fine, the PUPS are a hugely pleasant surprise, the hardware is good and the finish is very difficult to fault.

I am really pleased that I took the chance on buying this guitar, very happy with it and based on its quality I have just ordered a Harley Benton HB35 Plus in Lemon Burst. If that guitar lives up to the standards set by this one, Harley Benton might just have earned a new fan.

Very good for price

Guitar with good design.

Pickups emit a clean, balanced sound.

Light scale and very practical.

Ideal for beginners.

Awesome Guitar

I live in Chicago Suburbs and the guitar was delivered by the US postal serve the box was damaged and the guitar had a small nick in the headstock and needed a set-up, took the guitar to my favorite luthier and had a set up with lower action, this guitar sounds fantastic looks gorgeous and plays as well as any guitar I have and I have 16. The sustain for the wood combination is exceptional. If you like Tele body style and humbuckers this is an awesome find.

Simply Amazing

I love this guitar... look so elegant and classy

Great Guitar for the Money

I was very surprised when I received this guitar. I own and have been playing Gibsons, Fenders, Kramer, Ibanez, Charvel, Shecter, and others for 30 years. This guitar needed substantial fret work to make it playable without buzz. I leveled, crowned, and dressed the frets on this guiitar and now it is perfect. A great value. Really great playing neck and pleasantly surprised by the clarity of the Roswell Alnico 5 Vintage pickups.

Harley Benton TE-40 TBK Deluxe Series review

Great cheap guitar.

I've used it as a backup for a lot of shows.

The bridge pickup has a strange placing, it's very far away from the bridge. I changed the bridge pickup with a brighter one and the sound improved drastically.

Great as a backup or just to use for different tunings.

Over all build quality is good. I had work on fret ends because they were sharp. Cheap tuner, but they keep guitar in tune. Neck profile and satin finish is really good.

For that price will be hard to get better guitar.

How do you do it

What a Beauty, just have to make some minor adjustments and I will be perfect, Thanks.

Great guitar for the price

For the price this is a very good guitar. It does have flaws ,but I am still amazed with what you get for very little money. After some work, it turned out very good.

The good: It is solid feeling guitar and I like the feel of the neck shape. Not too thick. Not too thin. Even unplugged, it is very musical for a solid body. I like the carve in the back for a T Style guitar. Plugged in the pickups sound good, so no reason to swap them.

The not so good but ok:

There is a flaw in the design because the strings rest on the back of the tune-o-matic bridge. The string though holes seem to be too far forward which creates a sharp angle for the strings. You cannot move the saddles back far enough or lower the bridge far enough and still keep intonation and prevent string buzz. Hopefully it does not cause string breakage. I just dealt with it and lowered the action to my liking. The pots are not Alpha or CTS, but seem to work fine so far. The tuners work fine. The gold hardware is pitted a lot, but you cannot see it unless you look close. Mine has paint on the fretboard and I had to work on the frets since some were sharp and dull.

After a good bit of work, I really enjoy playing this guitar.

terrific quality for the price

Not gigged this yet but it sounds so good and looks impressive so its only a matter of time.

I play Uk Indie and ska tunes mostly in a cover band and the occassional function with other groups and this is ideal sound wise for what i need. Build quality is above and beyond what the price suggests - beautiful finish, plays easy and seems to stay in tune well even when given a little bit af abuse.

its the second Harley Benton ive bought and will buy more.

Free yourself of the headstock snobbery about what name is written up there and try this out.... its a very playable and well crafted guitar by any standard.

When you do some work on it yourself, it's a really good instrument...

But if you just leave it as it came home to you, you'll be sorely disappointed:

- It came with 0.10 D'addario strings, first three of which were rusty

- 6th string kept buzzing against the first fret, so truss rod and string height adjustments were necessary for 0.10 strings

- fretboard came with a lot of some whitey substance throughout it (possibly glue from those not-so-smooth frets), needed to clean it all up with rags, some wood cleaner and then with Lemon Oil)

- screws on 6.5mm jack needed tightening

- for thicker strings nut replacement seems very much necessary

That's about it for the bad stuff, now onto the good:

- tuning seems to be holding well

- pickups have a really great and punchy tone, even agressive if you want it to

- body is quite light and a bit thinner than I was expecting

- neck is smooth

- headstock, volume knobs, pickup switch, strap holders, body finish - these look, feel and are great just the way they are

So, how would I sum up my first electric guitar? After some of the work it plays fantastic, which is all I need as a beginner.

Excellent guitar for the price!

I needed a Tele sound for a couple of spots on an album and this guitar was perfect. I don't know how well it would hold up on the road, but for light studio use this guitar is an incredible bargain. The only downside is that it may require a setup when it arrives - the intonation of mine is lacking when playing up the fretboard.

Overall, much better quality than I had expected. I'll be holding on to it.

Could do better on electonics and nobs

I absoloutely love the guitar, but the electronics are just ok. You have to setup the input jack himself. That could be done by the staff. And the pick up control nob came right off. Shame. But over all, the guitar is great, more than great.

Nice guitar

I was pleasantly surprised nothing bad to say about the car other than that I may put in a different neck pickup but that is just a matter of choice overall great guitar for the money probably have to pay three times more in another brand

Just lovely. A lot of guitar for the money!

Played guitar for the best part of 50 years. Took a punt on this after watching a couple of online reviews- I was not disappointed. Arrived in 3 days to the UK, Excellent communication.

The finish is almost perfect with a couple of tiny dust specks under the lacquer, but for this money who cares? Hardware seems more than up to the job, tuners work fine.

The strings needed changing out, which I would of done any way, the fret board needed oiling and the frets polishing. The action was pretty good out of the box, but there was a little fret buzz that was quickly sorted. The neck has a great feel and is very playable.

The Wilknson pups are fine, but not quite to my taste - I usually end up upgrading on all my guitars. These guitars are a modders dream.

In conclusion, a lovely guitar which I would have no hesitation in gigging. The price v quality ratio is unbelievable. The only question now is which Harley Benton model next!

wow

this guitar for the price seems unbelievable, this is mind boggling.

how can you make a guitar this good for this price.I'm amazed.i have nothing bad to say about this guitar.recommend to all

Just got the HB TE-40 for my friend, it's the first Harley Benton to pass by my hand. Here are some thoughts.

Pros

- Neck is comfortable, not as thin as Fender modern C, which is a plus.

- TOM Bridge is much more solid than I thought, saddle notches are the right size, contrary to some SC models I've seen.

- Tuners are much better than expected

- Humbuckers are very decent, but heavy distortion is not handled as well as the other sound types (very good for cleans and rock)

- Binding is quite nice and without blemishes

- Pots are very smooth and switch is solid

- Fretwork is unexpectedly good, leveled and rounded

- Nut is slotted perfectly and is the right height

Cons

- Came with some aesthetic defects:

Two black paint spots on the neck wood

One ding on the lower part of the guitar

Jack plate is not screwed all the way in

One pickup tape was ungluing

- Although frets are very well leveled and rounded, they need to be polished to allow for smooth bends

All in all, great for the price, easily worth 400eur if sold under known name brand. Had worse for that price!

Excellent instrument for the price!

I'm a hobbyist guitarist on a budget and over the years I have bought quite a few inexpensive electric guitars manufactured in Asia and I can say without a doubt that this is by far the best one.

I'm extremely impressed with the neck setup. The frets are properly leveled and polished with a perfect finish on the edges. Not a single fret buzz in the entire neck.

The electronics are also great, no noises/humming of any kind. The toggle switch, pots and jack are of good quality.

Finally, it's worth mentioning that I live in Brazil and the packaging where it was delivered was just perfect and from ordering to getting it in my hands took only 10 days!

Unbelievable for 129 euro

I will start off by saying what an amazing guitar this is!!!

I currently only have one guitar to compare it with which is a Yamaha pacifica 112V but that guitar costs twice as much as this one but I still prefer the Harley Benton. I haven't touched the Yamaha since my Harley Benton arrived!.

The finish is just beautiful, with the grain showing through the lacquer and I honestly couldn't find a single blemish or scratch. The Wilkinson pickups do a very good job and sound great through my THR10. Frets are very well made and the setup was very good out of the box, the action was very low and I still got no fret buzz. The only con I could find is that one of the tuners was not mounted perfectly straight, but for this price I don't even care.

I really do highly recommend this guitar and at this price I think it's a steal