Harley Benton TE-52 NA Vintage Series Reviews

Good tele,but too heavy.I changed elektric parts,nut,bridge(Wilkinson),tuners(Wilkinson Vintage style),made shield from foil and did some work with frets.

Value for money

I wanted to try a Tele and the TE-52 caught my eye. It is highly recommended considering the price. A few quality remarks and this would be a 5 star guitar. It came well packed, the rear strap button was loose (easy fix just to screw in), the pickup select switch is not up to the level of the other parts. Clean sound is super. it is a relatively heavy solid body guitar. Very good looks.

Better than the hype

I did a fair bit of research before buying and am happy than I did. I cannot really fault this excellent guitar the finish was outstanding with nothing negative to say..

I am used to heavy guitars to the weight witch is substantial was not a problem.

After I setup up of the bridge and action to match the fretboard profile curve and then slightly slacken off the the truss rod for neck relief & lemon oiled the fretboard and the strings then played for hours..

Great inexpensive quality guitar very impressed..

Nice guitar

It's a nice guitar for the price, but I did find my Epiphone from the same price range to be more playable. The strings are a bit too tense, action is needs to be lowered and the guitar is quite heavy. But the sound is nice and it also looks quite nice. Feels like a sturdy guitar, after a few adjustment it's a really nice guitar.

get your tele twang

So I'll try to keep it short here!

For the price it's unbeatable, period. You get an authentic tele sound and a beautiful good quality guitar. Some upgrades may be needed to achieve high end playability according to personal preferences.

Use

I play indie rock (mainly) and some soul and funk (occasionally). It's perfect for most of that. All kinds of familiar sounds are in this guitar. I suppose it's good for other genres too, though I don't think it will get far into metal territory :)

Pros

-Good quality guitar. No quality control issues at all. Tuners stay in tune. Circuits are OK and working fine. The pots in mine were only slightly skewed causing no aesthetical or functional issue. It only becomes noticeable (hardly) when you turn them.

-Looks. Nice and flawless finish in mine.

-Sound. It sounds like a tele. PUs deliver all the twang (bridge) and warmth (neck) you'd expect even from way more expensive models. Saddles are fine, though I changed mine with some compensated brass originals for personal taste.

-Playability. The satin finished and chunky c shaped neck offers great playability. I found no fret polish necessary. It's not too heavy (not too light either!). It gives everything you might hope to get out of two single coils and a triple switch.

-Price. Unbeatable.

Cons

-Playability. The only con I could find is the action in mine came a bit high so I had to lower it. Some persisting buzzing didn't allow me to bring the strings (10s) as low as I'd like. But that's nothing a little luthier work can't fix. I might get round to it in the future to get it perfect. But it already plays great. Besides it's no shredder, right?

Overall

Buy it now! Soon American ash will be banned too!

Great product

Considering its price the product is excellent.

Great buy.

God og stabil gitar

God lyd og gitaren holder stemmingen godt

Wow ! What a nice guitar....

I have just taken delivery of this TE-52NA and can honestly say that I am absolutely delighted.

I ordered on Sunday and it arrived (UK) on Thursday - what Brexit issue?

Packed superbly, it arrived in perfect condition in all respects. All I had to do was give the neck and frets a quick clean, tune it, and we're off !

The Neck is perfectly set and flat, with the very slightest of relief. Action is good, can lower just a little, but will save that for later. Fret edges are smooth and well rounded, no sharp ends at all.

Fret tops are good and clean, and smooth enough not to worry - a few days hard playing will get them perfect.

It came set with 10's, which I may swap for 9's soon, just because.....

The volume, tone and pick up switch knobs are all firm and feel solid - all working perfectly.

The tuners seem to be working well, although the tuner heads seem a little on the small side .. they're fine really

Only CON - the pickguard is made of VERY soft plastic, and has marked already, just in taking off that absurdly sticky film protection - which I had to loosen a few screws to get all of it ! EDIT 16/4/21 - I have just been told there are TWO LAYERS OF PROTECTIVE FILM - Bingo ! taken 2nd one off and now scratch plate is PERFECT !!!

But all that aside, this is a guitar, and its for making music with ....

I've never owned an original F Tele, and never will, but why should I ??? These two single coil Roswell pick ups are so good - they have the absolute maximum of tone range between them, and I defy anyone to say that they are poor quality.

This guitar is quite heavy, but boy, it is good ! and fabulously good value ! It looks well above it's price point, and plays even better than that ! HB QC seems to be extremely good - thank you!

PS - this is my third HB, the others are an SC550 and an HB-35PLus - both absolutely excellent

I'm an HB fan !

Edit after 7 days:

I realised that the slotted saddles the come on this guitar were causing uneven string gaps after adjusting the action - strings stayed in the slots, not free to move sideways as the saddle tilted.

Easily solved by fitting a set of brass compensated saddles, which has corrected things perfectly - cheap, quick and simple. Just a slight shame that HB couldn't fit these in the first place.

Still a 5 star review however, as everything else still great

WOW!!!

There is a video on YouTube where a guy reviews this against a real Fender with a blind sound test. Buy the end of the video you are supposed to guess which one was the real fender. Myself and many others thought the Harley Benton was the fender, that's how amazing this thing sounds and that's why I bought it. For the money you won't be sorry.

Pros: Great guitar at a great price. Looks great sounds great.

Cons: None

Lovely guitar!

First impression when I got this Tele in my hands I was like "damn, it feels like expensive guitar". Neck feels great, pickups sound pretty clean even with overdrive, Im really surprised. You got that cripsy Tele tone which you are expecting. I will probably try out some brass saddles etc. just to check the difference is sound, still nothing wrong with the stock saddles :)

All I can say is if you are looking for your first Telecaster, than you just found the right one. Give it a try!

No major complaints. Just a solid, well-made instrument.

I'm used to wide ESP/LTD necks with jumbo frets, and I wanted a single-coil guitar which usually has Fender-style narrow fretboards. This guitar is a way to test whether I find those necks comfortable to play. I also wanted twang.

Pros:

Pickups surprised me in a major way. They're reasonably clear, have that characteristic brightness, and if you play around with amp settings and gain, you can get some nice distortion from it as well. The neck is decent, with no sharp ends. Good intonation. It also looks great aesthetically. Really hard to complain considering the price point.

Cons:

The action came a bit higher than expected. Also, the plastic cap on the pickup switch came off instantly. I did manage to fix it with some glue.

The only genuine complaint I have is that the tuners are very stiff. More than they should be.

Waiting for more

After many reviews (here and on YouTube), I expected a better tool.

In my copy: cosmetic defects; unreliable and highly configurable; the sound is good, but not perfect.

A good tool for its price, but nothing more.

Four stars out of five -

And this is unheard of!

Awesome budget tele

My 3d harley benton and it's great. Plays great, sounds great and feels like a great instrument. It's a bit on the heavy side of things but it's still worth a try if you are in the market for a budget great telecaster style guitar!

how can you do this

seriously how can you do this at this price. my first Harley Benton bought to see what the hype is about and I'm impressed. I own a Gibson custom shop Les Paul and ok that's amazing but so was my face when I paid for it. This guitar gotta say for the money is fantastic I may have to buy a couple of other Harley Bentons just to make sure wasn't a fluke hahaha. honestly good value for money if you are starting out or an aged pro

Ausgezeichnete Gitarre für ihren Preis

Sie ist schon sehr schwer. Aber das war es dann auch wirklich schon mit Makeln. Spielbarkeit, Klang, Verarbeitung sind jeweils hervorragend!

Love this tele

I can't think of anything bad to say, overall this is a great tele style guitar.

Everything about this guitar surprised me!

The build quality is fantastic and the Roswell pickups sound great. The most impressing thing about this guitar, however, is its neck. It's probably the first thing that grabs your attention when you unwrap it - A very comfortable and smooth C-shaped maple neck.

The guitar is a bit heavy, though, but the overal quality will make you forget about the weight.

All in all, I don't think any other brand would beat HB's quality at this price point and to be honest, you can hardly tell the difference between a Fender telecaster and HB TE-52, if you only listen to their sounds.

WORK HORSES!

IF YOU ARE MEN..YOU SHOULD HAVE THIS ONE! THE SOUND IS REALLY GENTLEMAN!

Twang for your Buck

Look. It’s a telecaster. It’s got a chunkier neck than some. It’s also incredible at the price point and even the pups sound good.

I love it and can’t stop playing it.

Hi, here my experience: great customer service, very quick response (i made a mistake by setting up my account), great product, i love my T52, great price.

The only suggestion what i like to do is to improve the packaging.

I received my guitar with a little damage on the body above the scratch plate, diameter of my little finger, not too much of a big deal for my (she got shipped a long way around the world) but still a bit sad. I think by improving the shipping box, damages can be avoided.

I do now it is difficult to stay still in profit range by selling a product in the lower level.

The problem is that customers usually always remember and mention the negative things, even it is just a little scratch and not realize that they got a got product for a good value shipped a long way.

I hope this may will help and reduce dealing with unhappy customers.

So again not a big thing for myself, but maybe for others.

Regards

Christian Debbas

Vancouver Island, BC, Canada