Harley Benton TE-30 BE Standard Series 4-stars Reviews

Great First guitar

This was a very good purchase for a first electric guitar. Overall very well constructed and sound was OK. For it's price I'd say it's perfect for a first guitar. Only 'complain' is that it is really heavy (>4kg) so it becomes cumbersome to practice standing for long periods of time, other than that, happy to have had it as my first guitar!

Excellent deal

Had this guitar since 2020. Has never given me any issues, I love it and I couldn't have asked for a better deal. Great bang for my buck.

I had to calibrate a bit when it just arrived, to adjust the action, but after that, it was just delightful. Indeed, a friend who plays Ibanez high-tier guitars tried it out and complimented how it feels on the hands!

It's still on the low-budget side, without sophisitaced pickups. The sound is kinda generic, but I think that replacing the pickups you could end up with an almost undistinguishable guitar from a fender!

Very Heavy Ash Body

But good tone, easy to convert to string thru for more sustain, but the wood is quite soft so be wary of pickguard screws loosening and requiring a drop of wood glue after repeated use

Very good for the price

Have had it now for a year, It is absolutely a solid guitar that is perfect for bringing with me wherever I tend to go. The sounds is crisp. Honestly no real downside at this price.

Great guitar

Really nice beautiful guitar.

With new strings,

Nicely built budget guitar

I challenge anyone to find a guitar of this quality for the price. Not sure how HB do it! The only fault is that it's not strung through, it is a top loader and mine seemed to like snapping the top e string lol. Sorted it by adding my own string ferrules. A lot of work, however we'll worth it as now has more sustain, the Ash body is rather heavy but sounds 👍, thanks Harley Benton .....1st class service.

Great budget tele

This is an excellent guitar for such a small amount of money. The price is great but if you're in the US remember that shipping bumps the cost. Decide for yourself if you'd rather have this guitar or a Squier affinity for the price, but I think this guitar edges out the affinity by a bit. The pickups are serviceable and the neck is alright but could use a little love. Personally, I will use this guitar as a starting point and upgrade the pickups and slap a fender neck on there. Does anyone know of a place to buy a replacement pickguard for this model?

Really good for the price

Really good for the price, decent pickups, played almost perfectly out of the box ( a single fret was buzzing, a friend had to sand it down).

Not great not terrible

This is my first guitar, and in my opinion this one will do quite well for the first guitar. It sounds great, the frets are polished and won't scratch, but the build quality is lame. So if you want to buy a telecaster for your first guitar or just want to try this shape, this guitar is not the worst choice.

For the price it can't be beat.

The TE-30 is a fantastic instrument. When you consider the price point it is unrivalled. It is on the heavy side which is worth noting, and the tuners are loose. All that said it's a lot of guitar for a very good price.

Amazing cheap guitar

It is my main guitar for rehearsals right now.

To put it shortly, it does its job. What else do you guys need?

It looks great, sounds like a tele, was playable out of the box. And it is cheap, so I am not afraid if anything happens to it.

The most serious drawback was the sharp fret edges after some time of usage, but I easily fixed that with a file.

I believe it is one of the best choices if you want to try out a telecaster-styled guitar and you care more about the amount of money you pay for a serviceable instrument rather that the logo on the headstock.

Good value for the price

It's my first Harley Benton guitar and first tele as well. Bought it for my teenage daughter for practising. Guitar looks good and overall quality is good. For the weight it's quite heavy. Sustain is ok. Compared to MIM player Jazz master sustain is weaker and neck feel is thicker also. Usually nobody talks about neck and this is important to know if you like very thin neck guitar. This is a little thicker one. Action can be set quite low though. Bridge pickup sounds good but neck sounds a little too dim.

Pros. Overall good quality. Neck and body is made from real wood witch is quite rear for that price range guitars. Bridge pickup sounds nice.

Cons. Maybe little heavy and neck is a bit too thick for me. For this guitar 6th string tuner is a bit loose.

But overall good value for the money and I keep it.

Good for the money

Frets were scratchy and needed a polish a few imperfections in the finish other than that perfect you can’t go wrong for the price .

Where and for what do you use the product?

Recording- studio/bedroom/cafe

does the job, Good enough to hit the road.

Beautiful, poor lipstick pickup.

The main pro of this guitar for me is how beautiful it is! the pain finish is translucent and you can see the wood a bit. Lipstick pickup is poor, nothing close to a lipstick sound. Excellent mod platform! feels solid and heavy! Tuners are bad too, require upgrade. All else is good or standard!

Good fretboard, little string buzz

I use this guitar to record loops on my daw. I am satisfied with the guitar and ı really like the fingerboard. On this price really good product. On the other hand ı have to handle some string buzz and ground process.

great guitar for beginners

The guitar plays really nice and can be comparable to more expensive guitars. Would have liked the guitar to feature strings through body not a top loader, but otherwise a fantastic guitar. Highly recommended for as a starting guitar or a backup guitar.

You get what you pay for

It's a great value guitar if you keep in mind how much you paid for it and are willing to put in some work to bring it up to scratch or have low standards in general.

I originally purchased it as a cheap guinea pig for practicing 'relic' work. It turned out to be worth keeping with a few changes and while it doesn't compare to a real Fender it's still fun to have around.

PROS

+ decent finish

+ nice chunky neck and body with good tone and sustain

+ plays decent

+ straight neck, surprisingly decent fret work

+ reasonable platform for basic modification

CONS

+ near useless tuners

+ non-standard design despite the 'Telecaster' look. For example if you wanted to swap out the neck, the routing is not compatible with a proper Fender neck. Fair enough, but then it's also not even compatible with other Harley Benton necks, having tried with both a TE-70 (fits with some effort but would need holes redrilled) and a Fusion-T neck (just forget about it).

MIXED

+ electronics are cheap but serviceable. Pots, pickup switch etc are not exactly the smoothest but at least don't sound crackly.

+ pickups are heavily microphonic. This is generally considered undesirable but I think can actually be a nice thing as long as you're not playing with heavy distortion to get some more natural playing sound. They do a decent enough job at imitating the Telecaster tone as long as you're going through a decent amp. If you're just playing at home or jamming out some blues in your garage, these do the job. If you're ever going to play live or record anything, or like to throw in anything more than a very mild overdrive, they need to be replaced.

+ tuners are junk as expected As long as you're not doing any string bending they're OK for the price though.

WHAT WOULD I CHANGE?

If you consider this as a cheap basis for modifying into a better insrument:

* better pickups (Fender Tex Mex are a great budget option here, I ended up with some Fralins when I decided I'd actually keep the guitar)

* replace the tuners with locking tuners (you may need to widen the tuner holes depending on which ones you buy)

* replace the nut with a Graph Tech nut

* copper tape shielding around the pickup cavities and under pickguard

* add string trees (genuine Fender roller trees are really cheap so don't skimp)

The price of the guitar just doubled but these are all pretty easy changes and you're left with a gig-worthy instrument instead of a collection of compromises.

A very smart deal

With feets on the coffetable i scroll through dozens of youtube vids to find a new tele model for my self.

I listen to the sound basically. When I hear it, it takes me 10 sek. to decide if I like it or not. From before I have a Fender strat 1979 and a US tele from 84. The strat must have thousands of playingours on it because I did play for a living late 80es. The tele was partly a gift from my dad so I am a bit scared to drag it around gigging everywhere. Emotional you know.

I found the Harley Benton 30 where a guy played it. I liked the sound immediately.

Now I used it for a while. I even record a little with it. The sound is just as good as my US tele. A touch sweeter in a way, a bit quackyer maybe, and I love that. The US tele i have are bigger in the high frequencies maybe but that is not necessary a plus. Depends on what you want.

I believed I would change something after a while but I will not. I keep the pickups, I like the way the guitar sounds.

But I have to dig up something that is not all good right ? To stay trustworthy in a way ? Well, the frets had a somewhat jagged surface. Like small cuts at the surface or something. Maybe they transport wire for them at donkeyback or something ,I dont know but they should be careful with the materials. So what do I do about that ? Nothing, but playing the living daylight out of this thing, and now the use have polish that away.

Next on the block is the tuners. I am used to Fender tuners and at least one of the like dropped a little when start tuning. Just a little. Now when I am used to them i manage to use them and it is all good.

This poor thing will be put to mercyless work. That is how I express love.

Harley Benton TE-30 BE Standard Series Tele

I ordered a B stock on this one so I can not comment on a brand new item. However I will say that aside from a small mark on the top of the headstock, this appears to be brand new! So no complaints at all there! Looks, plays, feels and sounds great for the price. Frets were all crowned and dressed with no sharp edges. Quality is high for the price. Would recommend!