Harley Benton TE-52 NA Vintage Series Reviews

stunning for the money - a few niggles

I really didn't need another guitar. I have seven already including two Strats, a LP and a Gretsch. I ordered this simply because I wanted to see for myself what these guitars are like. When it arrived I was stunned. So impressive for the money. After setting the truss-rod and bridge saddles how I like 'em, and giving it a set of Fender Bullets, I gave it a thrashing.

Niggles - the back of the neck had a small but pronounced bump, which I think was a hardened drip of lacquer. Sanded off straight away. The slot for the nut hadn't been cut properly and there is a tapered gap behind the top three strings. After checking intonation I filled this with milliput.

I'm not keen on the 'aged' finish on the neck and fingerboard, would prefer plain clear-lacquered pale maple.

Good bits - The bridge pickup is fantastic, the neck pick-up not so much, which is a shame, but what can you expect at this price? I lifted the pickup height to equal the volume of the bridge pickup and it's not too bad, but not great.

The other guitar player in my band has a Fender Elite Tele to compare to, and sure, his guitar sounds a little better. But I could buy fifteen of these guitars for the price of a Fender Elite. His guitar doesn't sound or play fifteen times better. It just doesn't. The finish on the body is no better either.

Unbelievably good value guitar, and any quality control issues can be ironed out if you know what you're doing.

Highly recommended, especially for people who don't want to take expensive instruments to gigs in seedy dives. Like me, for instance.

Great value

Reminds me if a squier classic vibe 50s telecaster I had but at less than half the price! A couple of the string ferrules fell out of the back of the body but nothing a little glue couldn't fix. After that and a basic set-up I couldn't be happier with it.

nice

my first time buying harley benton guitar and im not disappointed

Superb guitar for the money - or for more!

The TE52 is a great value guitar that will suit anyone looking for Telecaster tones on a budget.

The overall build quality is very good, with a few minor niggles (the Jack plate was bent on mine). The hardware works and looks good. It has a nice neck that feels quite thing, but plays very well with decent fretwork (no sharp frets at all).

Soundwise, the Rosswell pickups capture the essence of a telecaster brilliantly. In a blind test, my youtube viewers could not tell the TE52 from a 2017 Fender Standard!

Overall a great value guitar that will satisfy your telecaster needs in the studio, on stage or in the bedroom....!!

good deal

needs fret work and is super heavy

Love it!

Sold built, great sounding guitar.I will definitely be purchasing another Harley Benton.

Suddenly well done

For a long time I looked at this guitar. I wanted a Telecaster for a little money. In Russia, such guitars are twice as expensive. The order came for 10 days. Despite all the horrors of the Russian post, the guitar came whole and without damage. Made very high quality for its price, even taking into account the delivery of 60 euros. The only claim to frets. They are completely unprepared, not polished, and the strings are scraping on them. After polishing the frets and screening with copper foil will be very good. Perhaps, it will be necessary to replace potentiometers and a capacitor for something more qualitative, but the factory ones work normally. Surprised pickup Rosewell. Great sound. I wanted to change to Fokin Pickups, but this is not required. Good guitar, I'm completely satisfied

a miracle in its kind

I bought this guitar with the intention of substituting its neck with a rosewood fretboard neck, but after I heard how it sounded I didn't feel like touching anything.

This guitar sounds like it costed a _much_ larger amount of money. And stays in tune perfectly.

The body is very resonant and the tonality is dry and severe; but rich, full of overtones.

Truly a miracle in its kind.

Great Guitar

This is a great guitar and fun to play. Guitar arrived just under 20 days. Set up and playable out of the box. Very solid and well built. 3 piece body. Pickups are good, tuners were good. Only issues were the pickup selector was a bit bent, and the volume knob was loose which should have been caught by quality control. I will purchase again very soon.

Great buy

Brilliant guitar for such little money. Once received I removed the strings and cleaned the frets to make playability smoother. With new strings now it plays, feels and sounds great! Ideal for beginners but not only. It is also great for people who love customising and experimenting with mods and upgrades. Go for it - for such little money there is really not much risk.

Unbelievable Value!!!

I ordered one to see what all the positive talk is about Harley Bentons. This TE-52 just blew me away as far as quality and value for the money. The packing was well padded with NO issues! This is a vintage model so I really liked how heavy it is and the larger C neck profile. I liked it so much, I ordered 2 more so I can customize and have fun with them! For the price why not?

If you like Telecasters...

Enough has been said about this Harley Benton model, 90 something reviews with honesty and reasonable comments.

This guitar is far better than Sq. Affinity, Standard and almost head to head with Classic Vibe and Mexican Fenders.

Apparently action is high in all of them when you receive, not a big issue, mine didn't present any other issue.

If you eventually choose to go for a B-Stock offer though, bare in mind you might need some work to be done in the instrument...

Been playing and having fun with it for 7 months now, and honestly, for its price, nothing to complain about.

Really recommend this instrument for beginners, or Mod enthusiasts!

Good guitar for the money

I was a little skeptical but guitar has very good price/quality ratio.

I will start with impressions.

-Very nice body and neck finish. Hand slides on neck like charm. body looks like a dream and everything just looks like much higher priced instrument.

-1ply thick pickguard- not a minus for me.

-Classic style bridge that works fine, pretty good intonation for 3 barrel saddles.

- Switch and pots works fine. Nothing to be afraid about.

- Pickups are great. Very good classic sound with good clarity thanks to alnico. Bridge pickup has very good output which is desirable with tele.

- Good soldering job.

- No sharp frets. Pretty good level across whole neck. Very nicely polished.

- Nut is ok. With some graphite from pencil it will do job just fine.

Now the bad sides.

- My tuners are awful. They are pretty hard to turn but they seem to hold tune. I think i'm gonna replace them but not for this reason.

-Holes for the screws in headstock that holds tuners were too big. Under a tension from strings tuners were just very unstable. I had to glue all 6 of them with some wood toothpick inside. Now there's no problem. If that would be modern tuners there would be no issue but these tuners are hold in place thanks to screws on back of the headstock.

- Bridge is slightly misplaced. Maybe 2-3 millimeters. Holes from body doesn't align with bridge and strings are not perfectly in the middle of the neck.

General impressions. Great guitar for the money. It requires some work but after that we get instrument that other manufacturers have for 3 times more money.

It isn't flawless but it gets job done. No one should be disappointed with that kind of sound.

Another great tele from Harley Benton!

This is my third Harley Benton tele - I also have the TE-40BK and a red TE -90QM, both great guitars. I am a modder and love the HBs as a platform to start from.

The TE-52NA arrived within 4 days in good condition. The frets needed polishing and I always change the strings and adjust the action to my taste. The body is 3 pieces as far as I can see and there are absolutely no cosmetic impercations to the finish. One of tuners was a little vague, but I have since swapped them out for a set of Wilkinsons. Very impressed with the Roswell pick ups - don't feel the need to change them for the time being.

Since receiving the guitar I have changed the bridge for a Wilkinson with compensated brass saddles, fitted a Graphtech nut and rewired with new pots, cap and a 5 way switch mod - so for something less than £200, it is an absolute tone monster and a joy to look at and play!

I have gigged and recorded with it and it is currently my go to guitar. Only question is what next? SC-450 plus?

Amazing for the price!

I bought this guitar for study at home and it was a surprise! I end up playing it every day.

The finish quality and details are excelent for the price. The neck profile is good enough and confortable. There no sharp edges.

Vantages: Sounds great with a very bright vintage tone and the neck position is perfect for clean tones or blues. I m in love with it.

The only thing i see as disavantage is the weight.

Its a great instrument and it will be much more perfect with pick up face lift or locking machine heads.

I got this guitar as I watched some videos online and loved the sound of it and it had some nice reviews as well. The finish and build quality seemed to be very good although the action was very high, but I figured lowering it shouldn't be an issue.

Unfortunately no matter how I adjusted the truss rod and saddles on the bridge I couldn't really get the action much lower as I immediately got fret buzz - so the action is still too high and I assume it needs fret leveling, which would literally cost me more than half the price of the guitar.

Another issue is the noise of the pickups, as there's a significant hum which I assumed was just a feature of single-coil pickups, but now that I have compared it to two other single-coil guitars I realize that this is not just normal noise, this is something else. This is not a huge issue, but it is a little bit annoying.

Overall, I do like how the guitar feels and sounds, but unfortunately the annoying buzz does irritate me a bit and the high action makes it less than a joy to play.

I guess this is what you'd have to expect for the money, and I can't claim that it's terrible as the finish is nice, it stays in tune, the sound is crisp, and there's no sharp fret ends to tear into your hand - but you do get what you pay for and it's far from perfect.

If you own the skills and the tools to deal with issues like this, it's probably not a big deal, but I don't know how to level frets, nor should I be expected to on a brand new guitar, so for that I can't really recommend it to a beginner, but maybe to a hobbyist.

Nice guitar

Do a little setup and you have a very nice telecaster!

Harley Benton Tele TE-52 NA

Use this in Band/Open Mics/Studio

Pros:

First, Looked Great , Beautiful Guitar

next, Tone - Wilkinson pickups are amazing, Spot on Tele tone

add a little slap back delay and compression and you can sound like Brent Mason. You can sustain till the cows come home.

Action very playable.

Cons: Lacquer on fret board came off quickly, down to wood pretty fast.

Needs a bit of fret leveling, but still very close.

Overall: value is unbeatable. would definitely buy again if something happened to this one.

I don't know how they do it

This guitar is on par with at least the higher end Squier products. It boggles the mind that Harley Benton are able to make such a quality instrument at this price point.

The Wilkinson pickups sound excellent and the guitar feels lovely to play. It also looks fantastic (I had a friend think that it was worth a significant amount more than it cost when he first played it)

The were a few minor (and I really mean minor) imperfections, cosmetically speaking. There was a dark mark in the fretboard at the higher end and there is a small crack in the glossy finish near the neck joint, you really have to go over it carefully to notice, though.

I've had this puppy for a year now and it has become my go to guitar for everything except metal. It sounds utterly amazing through a glassy clean amp and it really works well with overdriven sounds too (I use it in conjunction with a Lotus Effects THD+N fuzz pedal and it screams).

If you're someone who likes their guitars to look as good as they sound then this is a good choice for you, especially if you're on a tight budget. It looks as beautiful as it sounds.

It single handedly demolished all of my previously held ideas about how much you need to spend to get a nice sounding, looking and playing guitar.

Buy it

Great guitar for those who are not after a brand!