Harley Benton TE-20 BK Standard Series Reviews

Better than expected!

This arrived today and all I can say is...wow! For the price this guitar is amazing, it's easily on a par with my Squier tele.

Looks good, sounds good, perfect finish and no sharp frets. Good setup straight out of the box, just had to give it a quick retune and I was up and running.

Excellent value

I wanted a back up for my Fender Tele and having read some good reviews and seen some Youtube vids, decided to take the plunge with the TE-20.

The guitar looks the business and sounds very much like a Tele.

The pickups have their respective sounds down, although I will probably end up changing them.

The hardware is okay, but again it would be no problem to upgrade.

The frets are all level with no sharp overhangs.

In general, a very good Tele backup and well worth the very little money.

Great value for a beginner

I bought this as a gift for my nephew but checked it over when it arrived and could not believe the value for money. It was perfectly playable out of the box and the boy is progressing nicely with it. Incredible value

Pretty close to a genuine Telecaster

Five stars take into account the inexpensive price. It plays well, sounds as crystal clear as the real thing, it was well-packaged and there were no imperfections. If I had to nitpick for an objective review, minor issues were that (a) the bottom two strings did not line up with the pole pieces on the pickup, but were improved by adjusting the action and this did not affect the sound (b) the action was high on delivery, but has been adjusted satisfactorily without inducing buzzing and (c) using the free lead that came with the guitar, I was getting a lot of hum when the volume pot was at mid-range. However, the hum disappeared when I substituted a quality lead. Having made these minor adjustments, the guitar comes pretty close to a genuine Telecaster in looks, playability and quality. I especially appreciated that the fretboard was pretty smooth at the edges, the metal frets not protruding.

...boomy pickups...

...first impression-nice product, body made of 2 pieces which is visible on the back, weighs in at just 3.1 kgs, intonation seems fine, lower the strings and after a while playing they hold their tune pretty well,

I play this through a Vox AC10C, I can find a sweet spot when I turn the tone on the bridge pickup back a bit, the neck pickup wants most of the treble and even then it is still not really there but in the bass notes they both get boomy. the sound is between poor and ok.

a project or `rough gigging` guitar for an affordable price, although when you play for a good number of years or with upmarket instruments you may not like the relatively rough and narrow feel of the neck. I believe beginners should get better necks for not to turn them away from guitar-playing. after tweaking for some time you will hear that the pickups are at their limit and not ideal...the channel switch is noisy but all pots work and sustain is good giving the fact that it is not a string-through-body......there is a reason why this telecaster is cheap....this is not for me

Great Guitar

Great overall guitar.

Pickups aren't bad but since the guitar is so cheap you can replace them easily.

Price to performance this product punches way above its weight.

For 79 Euro you get an easily playable beginner/Intermediate guitar.Very light and easily transported for buskers.

Pick guard feels a bit cheap but other than that a solid guitar and pick guard is easily replaceable.

intention was perfect on arrival.

No real complaints overall solid guitar.

Nice even if you don't know the price

Before you run away with any ideas that this is going to be better than a true Fender, it's not. Is it going to be better than a Squier? That's a tougher question. It can't compete with a Classic Vibe for quality, that's for sure, but if you had a choice of the TE-20 and the Standard Telecaster or an Affinity - and you were paying for it yourself - the HB starts to look very attractive.

The TE-20 is a classic T guitar, with two single-coils and simple controls. The black finish is thick but smooth and it looks really nice, especially when you realise that the grubby look of the pick guard is caused by the double layer of polythene film that just needs peeling off.

The neck is a 'C' shape and nice to use. It's very slightly deeper than that of an Affinity, but it's good for beginners and more experienced players alike. The rosewood fingerboard is a little bit coarse but mostly it just needs some lemon oil to rub in. It's not as smooth as a Fender, but then if you are playing chords you won't notice. The fretwork on mine was good, with only a tiny bit of roughness on the edge of a couple of frets. I thought about getting a file out but didn't think it was worth the effort.

The tuners aren't the best. They do work, so if you are on a budget you don't have to replace them, but they are vague and don't have much feel to them. I' bought some OEM Wilkinson tuners (19 pounds and 20 minutes' work) to replace them and they made a world of difference. It's much easier to tune and you know that it's going to stay there - bum notes won't be the guitars fault!

I did replace the string trees with cheap roller guides (3 quid) but even that isn't necessary on a term-free guitar and they look out of place on a tele. The originals did look cheap though.

The strings were fine but you will probably want to replace them with branded items. The other hardware is fine. The pick ups work well and the PUP selector and the vol/tone controls work OK, while never feeling that nice.

The action was pretty good out-of-the-box. I lowered the action a bit at at the bridge and gave it a bit more neck relief, but it was always completely playable.

As for sounds, yes, it plays well. It sounds enough like a tele for most people and can be used to play most genres of music pretty well as the pickups seem to have plenty of 'go' in them. Most people won't gain an awful lot by upgrading them, and they are at least as good as the Squier Affinity at one third the price.

If you are a beginner, you can buy this safe in the knowledge that it will do everything you want a guitar to do, while risking very little cash.

If you are a bit more experienced and just have a bit of credit rattling around you PayPal account, this is a ridiculously good buy - good tone, nice feel and a good basis for modifications.

Seriously, I've had more expensive curries.

The best cheap guitar money can buy

Cheap, but very well made, the best cheap guitars on the market, very playable, sound is not bad at all, you just cannot go wrong with this and it looks cool too!

Classic looks & good sound

This is not the first Benton tele I try and once again it's a good simple looking and good sounding guitar with a decent action/setup that you can easily customize and improve and comes with a small price. Of course you could change the ceramic single coils (especially the neck for me) and improve the sound but it already sounds pretty good as it is.

good guitar but needs help

this guitar is a great guitar, the strings that come with it need changing and the intonation and pickup levels need adjusting as with any new guitar but after that it is a fine guitar for beginners intermediate and professionals, sounds great clean, over driven or distorted really cant go wrong for under £90

HB TE20

I needed a replacement Tele that wouldn't break the bank, having bought a couple of HB guitars already I know the quality, setup and sound is well above the price point and I wasnt wrong, great guitar plays well right out of the box and is being used in the studio as of this morning. Highly recommended.

Best value guitar on the planet, and possibly elsewhere,

This guitar is excellent value for money, it arrived well packaged, was well set-up and felt like a guitar in a completely different price bracket. The neck is typical Tele, the body finish is flawless, the hardware is good quality and most importantly the sound is great. The pickups, which I thought might have been the Achilles Heel of the guitar, performed well, punching well above their price bracket. The Achilles heel was the strings, which were binned and changed for Ernie's, but no great shakes there. I have 20 guitars in my collection, inc Gibson, Fenders, Charvel etc, but I like a well engineered cheap guitar, and this fits the bill. Recommended to all beginners, and intermediates. Semi-professionals and professionals will probably turn their noses up at this, but they won't know what they're missing......

Great for the money

This guitar plays as well as either of my two more expensive guitars.

The body finish is perfect, the frets even enough and I love the feel of the neck.

I could only fault the pickups really, but even then, on a £50 guitar I'm being picky.

As others have said, I really can't believe what you get for the money. I would recommend this guitar to any beginner and even to an intermediate player who just fancied something tele shaped.

Incredible for the money

An absolutely superb guitar for the money. The pickups sound great, the fret board is excellent and the finish is wonderful. Highly recommended for anyone looking for an inexpensive but great guitar to play.

An unexpected gem

I bought this guitar as I've always wanted to refinish a Tele in a Paisley finish like the old Fender 60's models. I initially planned to buy just a body, but after seeing lots of positive comments regarding Harley Benton guitars on the thefretboard.co.uk website, I decided to take the plunge on this model. I anticipated having to do a lot of work to get something that was playable. After all, it's only £48, how much can you expect for that kind of money?

The answer was "Quite a lot".

Out of the box this was very playable - I'd expected to have to do a full set up including fret dress and polish, but was surprised to find that they were fine... could do with a tiny polish, but nothing that couldn't wait. Overall finish was very good; no runs or blemishes on the paintwork, and the neck was comfortable with a smooth satin finish. Action was a little high, but 5 minutes with an allen key fixed that. Hardware is not branded, but seems comparable in quality to Wilkinson after-market parts that I recently fitted to another project guitar. I may replace the bridge, but only to get one with compensated saddles. Intonation was fine with the original, just want a little more accuracy.

I have three other Tele-style guitars (one Fender, the others copies) but this is my first with a top-loading as opposed to through-body stringing. To my surprise, it doesn't seem to make that much difference... it still sounds like a Tele with the necessary spank and twang on the bridge pickup, and a more mellow neck pickup.

I had a paying gig with my covers band the day after it arrived, and honestly would have been happy to take this out and play it in public without any further modifications... the only thing that stopped me was fear I might ding the finish and make my refinishing job harder.

So in conclusion - it's amazing what you can get in a guitar for so little money these days... if there had been this quality/cost of instrument available when I started leaning guitar 30 yrs ago, my first musical steps would have been a lot easier. Tempted to try one of their single cut models next, though I really should finish my Paisley Tele first!

(Was) Not bad at all

I ordered this to use it in garden parties (been there, done that, proved itself) and to try out new ideas at home in my apartment. Admittedly, this will not be good enough for a big gig, but more than enough for a beginner, or on smaller club gigs if you are an amateur player. Sound is warm and clean, but the distortion will be slightly mushy (so installing a new pickup might prove useful). The neck is comfortable, the tuning keys hold well enough. The switch is a bit stiff, but it is to be expected. In short: Depends on what you want to use it for, and what level are you on, but It did not dissapoint! Does the job well enough, and for the price, it is GREAT! Recommended!

update after some months: I wanted to clean up every part of the guitar, so I took it apart. The installation of the electronics/pick-ups are ridiculously bad! Holy hell! I even found out that one of the wires for the bridge pick-up is without soldering! Just stripped and tucked to it's place. And this was QC'd? Really??? I redid all the electronics from scratch. Now the low price finally makes sense. :/

Brilliant!

Bought this as a project guitar, and exceded expectations! Nothing needed to be changed on it, pickups for the price are brilliant, neck is warm and bold and the bridge is glassy and crystal clear with a real twang to it, in short, standard tele sound. The bridge and machine heads are very good quality. The only draw back was the neck needed to be adjusted slightly, it was far from unplayable straight out of the box but just to put it to my specifications really. I had already bought the replacement hardware for it so I decided to go ahead and change it and what a sound I can get out of it now, for £200 (guitar hardware and pickups) I now have a guitar that rivals any of the high end guitars I've player. I would recommend this guitar to anyone, no matter what your playing level.

Unbelievable.

This guitar cost less than £60.00, I bought it to modify it to a 70's Tele Special 'lookalike', it really does look the part and with a Wilkinson 'humbucker' at the neck, a Fender scratch plate and a 3 way toggle switch with witch hat volume and tone knobs it sounds pretty good as well.

Tele twang on a budget

If you're looking for a decent starter guitar that won't put you off playing for life, or a cheapo back-up, this is ideal

It's a classic, no frills design and HB have kept the iconic features, including the lipstick pick-up. As with all the HB guitars I've used, this is built well - hardware is solid and functional. The frets are nicely dressed and you certainly won't cut fingers to ribbons on any sharp edges. My only negative criticism is that the white, one ply scratch plate was poorly finished, with some little plastic "hairs" coming off the edges. Two minutes with a bit of fine sandpaper and that was rectified.

It's got a nice clangy twang when you plug it in...no one's going to be fooled into thinking it's a "real" Fender, but for a shade over £50, you really can't go wrong. I would imagine it could sound even better if you swapped out the pick-ups, but it doesn't sound too shabby as it is. Action was nice and low, with just a little buzz on the top 'E'. I raised the saddle a fraction and it was gone.

The great advantage of a guitar like this is that you haven't got to fight against a cheapo tremelo system to get it into tune - it's the ultimate, basic "beater" guitar. Sounds good, easy to play with a nice, skinny neck and decent construction.

A good guitar for the money.

The finish on the guitar was very good. The neck feels good and the sound according to me is as good as an affinity tele, just slightly different.

The guitar was not well set up so i did it myself. It was easy to do but one of the screws controlling the intonation broke when i was doing it. It is not a big thing to replace but it made the guitar seem a bit less sturdy.