Harley Benton TE-20 SB Standard Series Reviews

So much for the money its crazy

Beautiful finish Solid heavy body Solid neck with jumbo frets Even the hardware seems upgraded from other guitars in this price range I feel like im playing a much more expensive guitar when i play this

Absolutely great value and quality

I hummed and hawed over which guitar to buy , always had a soft spot for sunburst but wanted to try something not a strat style . Happy I decided on the hb te-20 . Very good sound quality , fret finish was great , nice playability, the angle of the inner cut makes hitting high notes much easier , has a lovely finish on it. Overall very happy with quality for price

Great cost-benefit

It's my first electric guitar, and everything looks really good. The sound is clear and the finishing is pretty. I can imagine a best cost-benefit guitar.

For the price, nothing beats it

I ordered this guitar some time ago, still have it, the only thing I changed were the tuners, for some locking ones, otherwise great guitar, bang for the buck.

Great tele!

I purchased this TE-20 to make a "Keith Richards" Micawber style guitar with only 5 strings but after doing a couple fine tuning things to this guitar I might have to order another one because this plays soooo good. Love it!!

Could do better

On first opening, the body finish is excellent. I bought this guitar as a project to upgrade it and get to know the workings of an electric guitar. I picked the sunburst model to emulate the Fender Tele that I owned back in the 80's.. On closer inspection I found a chip out of the end of the head and the bridge pup had some coil windings exposed from the casing, however this did not affect the sound. The frets were not finished with sharp endings and the frets were rough when bending the strings. Strings 1 and 2 had a terrible buzz. The tone switch was useless as well. Basically, the guitar was unplayable on receipt, which is not good, even at this price.

After fixing these issues and replacing the nut ( soft plastic) with bone, the guitar sounds fine with a good setup of action and intonation. The poplar body, though not well rated for tone, sounds fine for the average player. It is a nice looking guitar but was not properly inspected or setup initially.

My recommendation: buy the model a few steps above the standard series to obviate the necessity of extra repairs. I presume they will be better setup and inspected.

guitar brings much more than expected

when i saw it in the catalogue i recommended Harley Benton TE-20 to some of my students... when first student got the guitar i realized that this is just a great instrument and i decided that i should buy one aswell... when i got the instrument i was amazed how good the instrument is according to the price... TE-20 is a very versatile guitar... the balance and playability of the instrument is just great so i decided i will use it professionally on concerts and recordings... since then i use the guitar frequently on concerts and recordings... i recorded several jazz fusion albums with this guitar and played it on many concerts without any changes on the instrument...

for the better picture here are some links of albums that i recorded with this guitar:

this guitar in action on video of one of the concerts i played with the west african group mamadou diabate & percussion mania

https://youtu.be/I2xAL8sFITg

Not bad but not great!

For the price it's an amazing purchase!

The guitar feels nice, has a bice weight to it, the neck is nice, great glossy finish, the pickups, fretboard, tuners are ok for the price.

It all works, for starters I think it's a good buy, if you want a cheap telecaster (like I did) just to grab it a feew times and not spend to much money for that purpose it does the job.

Not stoked but happy with the guitar!

WOW!

I was sceptical about quality at that price, but I can honestly say I’m so impressed with this guitar. Everything about it is worth every penny and more! Will definitely buy another.

Harley Benton TE-20 SB Standard Series

Pleasantly surprised with this buy. Overall sound is good, from a cost of less than 100 euro professional sound can't be expected but is a perfect buy for beginners/upgrading.

Good enough if you're willing to spend time setting it up

I ordered the guitar and a set of locking tuners, as I saw that was the major complaint of other reviews. The neck was really dry and I had to condition it and the nut is way too high, any fretted string on the first fret will be out of tune, I'll have to file the nut so that it's playable. Other than that, good guitar for the price

Great price quality

I already had other guitars from more expensive brands that were not as good as this one.

Very good for the price

This turned up in surprisingly playable condition. Not too heavy, hardware is acceptable, frets are ok...sounds like a telecaster. For €89 this is very, very good, although there will inevitably be a few less than perfect details in any guitar at this price.

I do guitar repairs and setups and I had a few spare bits around so I spent some time tidying this up. I put on a 3ply pickguard, which instantly made it look less cheap, and put in some Wilkinson Vintage tele pickups I had handy. Did some work on the nut, oiled the board and polished the frets, replaced a couple saddle height screws with shorter ones to save my hand from being scratched, etc.

Now it looks, feels, plays and sounds like a fairly decent guitar. I just wanted to have a basic telecaster in my collection to noodle on occasionally and this is fine for that.

A very good guitar for beginners or as a modding platform for tinkerers.

Un rapport qualité/prix incroyable !

Le look, le son. Une guitare simple à appréhender. Je suis particulièrement impressionné par la tenue de l'accordage.

perfect, especially at this price

Harley Benton TE-20 SB Standard Series

Slick bare bones tele. No frills. Had some fret overhang . Use it daily still. Nice and light

Incredible!

The Harley Benton TE-20 being priced even cheaper than the Squier Affinity range, I expected the same quality issues: many crooked pickguard screws, off-center bridge, “fret sprout” (i.e. rough fret edges), loose neck pocket, etc. I felt absolutely certain that it was going to have some issues, so, to avoid having to return the faulty TE-20 and wait for a replacement, I ordered two of them! My plan was to choose the least bad one and return the other. But I was in for a sweet surprise... I opened the first box, inspected the guitar and was shocked to be unable to find any issues. But I thought that I had gotten lucky. Then, I opened the second box and inspected the second guitar with an even more critical eye. To my astonishment, the second one was as flawless as the first. Honestly, they were both so well made, I had no idea whatsoever which one to keep, so I picked the one that had the nicest wood grain. Sure, I could have gotten extraordinarily lucky and received two exceptions to the rule, but if two guitars in a row are this good, Harley Benton must be doing something right. And I am saying this as a perfectionist who is always highly critical to every minute detail, which the vast majority of people do not even notice. All six tuning machines are in a perfect row, the nut is well cut, there are no sharp frets, no blemishes in the chrome plating, the neck plate is perfectly parallel to the neck, the bridge is perfectly centered and parallel to the edge of the pickguard, both knobs are the same distance away from the control plate, all the fretboard markers are perfectly centered between the frets, and so on. If I had to nit-pick, I would say that the jack plate is not perfectly parallel to the edge of the body, and there is a slight buzzing that seems to be coming from the bridge (might be one of the intonation screw springs). Also, the tuning machine gear ratio is pretty low, so it is easy to overshoot when tuning. But it simply requires a bit more concentration. Other than that, pretty much perfect! In terms of tone, the pickups sound like a generic Telecaster, so, if you are looking for that tone, you can get it on the TE-20. This is an excellent choice for a beginner or someone looking for a cheap beater guitar. I imagine, it should be a great modding platform, but first make sure that the Fender parts are compatible with these Harley Bentons. These are really incredible! My four times more expensive Squier had a lot more quality issues than the two TE-20s I received! I am sure that my next beater guitar is going to be some kind of a Harley Benton. There is simply no need to look any further.

Good guitar

Use this guitar from 2021 April. Only in home use. The sound are crystal, the wood good. I like it!

brilliant

great guitar for the price

Great guitar punches well above its price point

Arrived safely, no damaged. Fantastic sound. Once setup to my preference it was a joy to play. I tend to find you need to spend a good few hours playing a new guitar, get familiar with it. I made some adjustments to the pickup height and the poles,.I prefer to try get the most out of the stock hardware if possible and rarely see the need to change.