Harley Benton TE-20 SB Standard Series Reviews

HB TE-20 Sunburst

I love this guitar already! It took 7 days to get to Ireland, the finish is perfect and it looks great, same for the neck, I really like those skinny frets , they make it so smooth to play, neck is a good size too not too big, not too small, after a fret polish and a setup it plays great although the bridge pickup is real bright the tone control takes care of that. Ive owned a few Fenders and was not as happy with the quality of them as I am with this, (thats why I sold them, but I'll keep this) maybe change the bridge pickup, not much else to say, great guitar great price, I love it,, don't hesitate in grabbing one for yourself

hb te-20

its a very good starter guitar

its sounds greet and the finish of the guitar is beautiful when you see it you cant see the difference between a fender tele and the harley benton tele

At this price unbeatable

I bought this guitar as a birthday present for a friend of mine. The quality for this price is unbelievable and unbeatable. I made a very, very happy friend and I have no regrets.

If you want to see whether a Telecaster is your thing, do not hesitate as this is the cheapest and best way to try one.

Great guitar! Legend! Charismatic! Great workmanship! Super! I am satisfied!

Great guitar! Legend! Charismatic! Great workmanship! Super! I am satisfied!

Plays great, can't go wrong for the money.

I have been playing this now for a few months. No issues and I am happy with it. I like it better than some other more expensive Tele's I've played.

Very good sounding and playing guitar

Besides frets and fret board needing cleaned,this is an awesome guitar.I can't believe how good it sounds and plays.Very glad I bought this.Well worth the money.

Awesome instrument

I'm a beginner, so I've looked for the cheapest telecaster guitar to play Rocksmith. After I placed the order I started to look reviews and was amazed by how everyone praised this model.

When I got it I just fell in love. Very good build quality and finishing.

It lightweight and sounds very good. Will strongly recommend this model for all my friends. Totally worth spending money on.

The delivery a bit spoiled shopping experience. The first guitar was lost by DHL somehow, but second one arrived over the weekend.

a telecaster

its a tele, its so absurd that people complain that the finish isnt real, who cares. it looks beautiful and the pickups are very twangy. i gave it a little set up and restring if you want some faults that you get on many guitars.

New review

Got over the thrill of a new piece of kit and have owned it for a few months now, so enough time to write a more balanced review.

Here's what I found:

The frets need levelling. It's a fact. Good opportunity to learn how to do it finally!

The stock scratch-plate was one ply and a little roughly cut. I bought a 3-ply replacement and it's not a good fit. I can confirm it's the body shape, as the replacement fits the contours of my Fender perfectly.

The jack hole to the control cavity was badly drilled. It had splintered the wood on entry and this had not been cleaned up at all. Same goes for the hole for the neck PU cable to the control cavity. Took some work with a chisel to clean up that mess. They should fix that in the factory's quality control. Very rushed job with blunt drill bits.

The shafts in the tuners are a bit loose.

The body is 41mm thick, so 5mm thinner than the Fender. Not a problem.

Otherwise, was it worth the money? Hmm.. There are better 2nd hand guitars to be found.

Incredible budget Telecaster

About a month and a half ago I bought this instrument, and I love it to bits. It sounds terrific, plays like butter (although it did require a thorough setup) and looks stunning. There is however one issue in particular that sticks out like a sore thumb to me and is the only reason it loses not one, but two stars, and that is the tuners. I passionately dislike them. They manage to feel sticky and too loose at the same time, and cost me way longer than reasonable to get my guitar in tune, by giving a lot of gnarly resistance and being too loose a fit between cogs at the same time. I plan to upgrade to better tuners ASAP myself.

Other than this issue, it is an absolute dream for the price. Everything just works, I have a real hard time telling it apart (soundwise) from more expensive Teles (a good thing) and I hope it will stay this way for many more months or even years to come.

TLDR: For the price, I doubt there is anything better you can get. I cannot recommend it more, but you will have to deal with annoying tuners.

So now that I have upgraded to better tuners and played it for a couple months more, I can say that this review still stands. I've even done some work under the pickup cover and to the frets and found a pleasant surprise: The neck pickup cavity is routed to fit a humbucker, if that's something you're into. The bridge cavity, however, is not. Also I've found that there isn't a whole lot of room underneath the potentiometers in case you would like to add push/pull functionality, the parts I installed just barely fit. Really that's all, it still is a good budget instrument, though quite heavy, and I don't regret buying it.

Surprisingly not bad

Got this guitar because I wanted a cheap guitar I could take abroad two practise with. I didn't expect to get anything good, but I was pleasantly surprised. The guitar feels relatively good and balanced, though the neck is quite thick.

I found I get the best results out of the guitar if plugged directly onto Logic rather than an amp, and I have used it for a couple of recordings and people always get surprised when I tell them it was recorded with a Harley Benton.

Overall, it's a great guitar for beginners, or as a practise guitar. It's not very good to use live or in the studio obviously, but I find it very good price for money and I don't regret buying it at all.

the guitar is ok but it looks nothing like the one in the photo it is just a plain finish with no grain at all very disapionted

What!

It looks so good!

Perfect finish, just hang it on the wall and look at it ;-)

Came poorly set up, except for intonation, but after some adjustments it now plays very nicely with a very low action. There are no tools included and you need a couple of umbraco for the neck and bridge. Took me less that 15 minutes to set it up properly

It sounds nice, to not exactly like telecaster but something a bit close to. I like it and I will definitely play it. Amazing value for money

Wonderful guitar for beginners

I no longer have this guitar (sold it years ago), but I was very satisfied with it's quality and sound for the time I had it. The color was beautiful, the sound was ok. The guitar was sturdy and never gave me any problem. I had lots of fun playing it. The reason I sold it has nothing to do with the guitar itself, just personal choice. Nonetheless, I recommend it for beginners or those on a budget.

Had high expectations.

Purchased because of high ratings. Not impressed. Not as good as

Squire bullet Telecaster that I tried at Guitar center that was priced

about the same on sale. First of all, the frets have sharp ends.

The body has a small crack where the neck joins. The scratch guard

looks bad. (not contoured to the body) And, the strings are oxidized. The neck has a spot that was repaired with filler at the factory. The sound is not as good as the Squire Bullet Tele.

Over all, not worth buying.

Can't beat it for the price!

Let's be honest here, it's a tele. And the Fender's at the same price point (a little higher) are no better than this one, in fact these are better than those.

just great

feels good, sounds good, cost good

surprisigly good

Didn't expect such a high quality for the price.

Needed a spare guitar for daily usage and became the preferred one now .

Neck is really pleasant and fast .Played few blues/rock songs in a gig recently and neck pick up sounded great.

In my opinion tuners and nut can be improved, which means that they are working ok but we perceive quality difference with higher price guitars , but at the given price they are absolutely acceptable.

Great first guitar

I've only recently started learning to play guitar so understand that this from a beginner's point of view so I will definitely get things wrong every now and then.

As a first guitar with a small budget, this guitar is wonderful. I've seen videos of people having trouble with the "hump" in the Telecaster shape but I haven't had any problems with it (I might do when I get better but who knows).

One of the things I love about it is the sound is amazing despite the fact that the amp I have isn't the best. I got a pedal to handle the distortion since the amp is clearly weaker in that aspect and the guitar really performs with my BOSS DS-1.

I have some issues getting the exact sound that I want for certain songs (e.g. NIB by Black Sabbath) but that's most likely down to me being crap at playing as well as being surrounded by a myriad of settings with minimal knowledge about them.

I'm not sure how normal it is with electric guitars that when I put them on distortion (regardless of pedal or amp) and turn the volume on the guitar all the way, strumming the EAD strings makes a screeching sound. I'm probably playing wrong which is what I think.

I make sure to use the pickups when I turn on the distortion because it packs a punch, definitely one of my favourite settings to turn on.

In terms of the build quality, the neck is smooth and I can easily run my hand up and down it without an issue. The body is gorgeous, I never get tired of looking at it. The tuners work really well, I'm still figuring out the best way to keep the guitar in tune.

Overall, it's a wonderful little guitar, especially if you're a beginner and don't have a huge budget like me. The sound is so much better than I expected. The guitar itself looks and feels great to play.

Absolutely recommend

No frills

What can I say about this guitar? Well, let's just say that everyone should own one of these...for £77 this is a no brainer as far as I'm concerned. Lovely slim neck, a well finished body, and decent electronics for a budget price, it's all good. I've bought 2 of these now and they both play fantastically well.