Harley Benton JA-20HH Active SBK Reviews

Better than other cheap options

This guitar is not perfect but for the price you shouldn't expect it. Not the smoothest frets, a few aesthetic issues, a small buzzing issue. I would say this guitar is on par with my $500 squier guitar which is great considering the price of this guitar! Definitely needs a good setup after you get it. I play this guitar almost daily and I still love it and plus it looks super super cool!

Large manufacturers beware

I have been looking at a Harley Benton for a few years. I pulled the trigger on this one not really knowing what to expect. To say I was pleasantly surprised is a massive understatement. The finish of the guitar is flawless from the tip of the headstock to the bottom of the body. The frets are very well dressed both on the ends as well as the crown. The tuners are holding tune perfectly and are very smooth to turn with just the right amount of tension. The active pickups are extremely good. The bridge is bright on the cleans and gets very crunchy when driven. The neck is pure fat vintage sounding cream. And the middle position is the best of both. The setup of the guitar feels like someone cared about the playability of this guitar and took the time to make it rad. The action may be a bit low for some but it is perfect for my style. Very low to the frets and ZERO buzz. The metals used don’t look nor feel cheap and there is a bit of a premium feel to them. The only downside I have found is one that has been mentioned here before. You will need to remove the bridge and sand the paint where the ground wire touches it. There is a bit of noise when you push gain or distortion. It’s a simple fix and I don’t feel it warrants a drop in the rating. I will purchase another HB, and it will be soon! Oh and shipping was fast, 3 days from Germany to the US.

Amazing

I've seen reviews and videos online and really liked the looks, shape and sound of the guitar, I was cautious because of the price but when it arrived all doubts where gone. Gorgeous guitar, with amazing sound I absolutely love it.

Incredible Guitar!

The feel, the sound, the quality - i could'nt believe it when i was holding it as when i thought of the price!

It's okay.

If ever a guitar needed a tone knob, it would be this one. Unfortunately, once the volume on the guitar is pushed past 5, it becomes very muddy. If you plan to actually use this guitar, I'm going to recommend getting yourself a proper EQ pedal first in your chain. It helps it a little bit, but not enough for my taste.

Other than that, the infamous grounding issue has been resolved if you've seen all of the videos around from a year ago and were worried that it might still be a QC issue.

The neck is sensitive, and takes a bit to get used to. Fretting your notes too hard pulls this out of tune every time. Be gentle with this one.

It looks nice, but I'm not sure it's going to get played much. I got what I paid for.

The Beast

Checked for straightness, checked for damaged, checked for finishing. Only issue I’ve found would be the fret ends needed a little TLC, but nothing a super fine sandpaper couldn’t sort out in no time. Tuned to D standard, and went after it. This guitar is a metal beast!! Love it!

Great Guitar

Great guitar for a great price. Heavy sound and looks

Ground buzz

great guitar, cant wait to mod it, but ground buzz and hbz electronics need to get out. very pretty and good to play. i use 12-62

$ vs quality=🎸👍😁🇺🇸⚔️🍕🍺🤙

I was interested in a guitar with active pickups.

This one has what I was looking for as well as a simple control setup! The neck is very good, tuners are good, I play it through a Boss Katana 2x12 and it sounds great!

Killer looks - Good bones...but needs some work

Let me say right off the bat, this guitar gives you a lot of bang for your buck and a lot of the minor issues with this guitar are things that are completely understandable for a guitar at this price point, but it did have a grounding issue (well documented with this model) that I don't think is ok at any price point).

Pros - Killer looks, lightweight, and feels amazing once it's set up.

Cons - Cheap hardware...the tuners/nut/string trees aren't the greatest quality, but at this price point, its something I would expect. The fret ends were also a little rough and I needed to do some filing/sanding to smooth them out. Again...something I fully expect at this price point.

The big issue I was not OK with was the grounding issue with the bridge that caused a lot of noise when playing through high gain settings. I'm comfortable working on guitars, so this wasn't a huge issue for me to fix, but not everyone is in the same boat. Seeing multiple reviews of this guitar online shows that this was a well documented issue and a customer should not have to fix a brand new guitar out of the box.

All that said, if you ARE comfortable doing maintenance on your own guitars, this thing definitely punches well above its weight class and can be a beast once you've given it some love.

Great guitar for the price

Guitar got to me without any issues. 9V battery for active pickups was included in the pack. Sounds and looks great.

Another Nice Addition To The Budget Active Line

I'm a huge fan of Harley Benton - I've owned over a dozen in the past couple of years - and I'm an especially big fan of the ST-20HH Active (which I firmly believe is unbeatable as a budget metal guitar). When HB announced this model, I was super excited... then dismayed once the grounding issues came to light. By that point, I had already placed an order for this, so I decided to see it through and see how it would work out.

The guitar arrived in great condition, with perfectly playable action and nothing out of place. The finish looks and feels great, really nails the aggressive metal look without getting too over the top. Fret ends are good, though they could use a little bit of cleanup for that perfectly smooth feel. It balances very nicely on a strap, but because of the body shape it's a little bit neck heavy while sitting down. (If you've ever played a Jazzmaster, you know exactly what I mean.)

The most important part, though, is the sound - and I was fortunate enough to receive a guitar that exhibited zero grounding issues! Plugged it in to both my available amps and my audio interface, and there was none of the dreaded buzz that these guitars have become rather notorious for. (I even ordered a second one after the fact to see if I could double my luck, and that one didn't have the grounding issue either - so either they resolved it, or lightning struck twice for me!)

The HBZ actives punch above their weight - the neck is pretty smooth and has a nice compression to it for cleans and leads, and the bridge has plenty of crunch and attack for the big chunky rhythms. They're a bit dark sounding, so that's something to be aware of, but they're plenty good enough and compare quite favorably to my guitars equipped with big-name actives.

The rest of the hardware is pretty great - the pickup switch is incredibly responsive and has a satisfying *click* when changing positions, and the Hipshot-style bridge is incredibly comfortable. The tuners are fine, but nothing to really write home about, and a couple of them are fairly stiff - they're probably the only thing on the guitar that could really use replacement.

All things considered, the JA-20HH is a great addition to the budget active line Harley Benton has been building up over the past year or so, and I'm looking forward to seeing what gets added to the line in the future. (A side note for Harley Benton, though... could we *please* get some other finishes?! Even just a satin white option would be welcome!)

Amazing

This guitar arrived in perfect condition, no sharp frets, no marks or badly finished paintwork. Comfortable to play and sounds great too

Why, HB, why?

Usually one of the best companies in quality-to-price ratio, but this is a stinker.

Got it for its looks - 2 humbuckers on a matte black Jaguar with a string through body. Sleek and elegant, no tremollo, no million switches. Metal Jaguar.

Got the dryest fingerboard with fret sprout causing sharp and dead frets. The guitar sports the noisiest pickups ever. Action at the 12th fret is 4 mm. If I try to intonate the guitar, lowering the action reveals more dead frets.

Don't buy this. I'm literally offended by this guitar.

I own a Fusion III Tele and am in awe of how much 3x price difference makes and it's not the most expencive guitar ever.

I repeat - stay away from this. It's unacceptable.

Edit: straightening the neck revealed that the nut is cut too shallow, so the 2nd string buzzes on the 1st fret while retainig the high action from the 3rd onwards.

Sanded the down side of the bridge to solve the grounding issue and it didn't go away, which is logical because the bridge is doused in a non-conductive paint so it's either figuring out where to sand to make a continuous scratch that all parts touch the bare metal at one point or another or buying a new bridge... which I opted for, alongside a new set of tuners because lubricating the ones that came on the guitar solved little issues + they're covered in the same paint the bridge is.

To summarize - I have to replace the bridge, the tuners and the nut on top of pickups/electronics that were planned even before buying the instrument... and will have to bring the guitar to a luthier to solve the action issues (shimming) and the horrid fretwork.

Down goes the rate again. This thing should've never gone past the QC.

Small price, HUGE SOUND!!

I was a little skeptical because of the price, but I figured I could do some upgrades if I needed to... Well, that went out the window. The JA-20HH came ready to play and sounds great. I am so surprised how thick it sounds. The active pickups really elevate it. I could have paid 400-500 for this guitar and still been satisfied.

Great guitar, but needs a small modifiaction

The guitar itself is incredible; not just for the price but in general. I love the neck on it and it came with no fret or intonation issues out of the box. The only issue with the guitar is pickup noise. Some reviewers are saying its a grounding issues where the black paint on the bridge isn't allowing the pickups to be grounded. All-in-all it's a great guitar.

Good guitar but need work

Good and sturdy guitar, sound good but it got a big buzz when connected.

Just need to grind off the black paint on the back of the bridge along with the string holes to make ground properly.

Bargain but with issues

I'm a big fan of the "gothic" look and have 2 of the ST-20HH's, one of the ST-20HSS, three of the TE-20HH's and also a JA-60SB.

Out of the box, the usual is apparent....it needs to be set up as the action is too high to solo comfortably! After tuning it up, inserting the battery and plugging it in, I see/hear that the HBZ actives are just as noisy and for my high gain setting need a gate.

My main issue with this guitar are the tuners, they are the worse that I've come across on a HB (I have 35 so far), so clunky, stiff and lose and really let the brand down, I've not had as bad a set from the Aliexpress budget buy range!

Another very small but noticeable aesthetic for me is the scratch plate, it's a 3 ply but has no bevel to it, from the top it might as well be a one piece black plate!

In comparison to my JA-60SB, it's night and day. The 60SB is by far the better quality guitar and makes the 20HH feel more like the kit version! In all fairness I may have got a bad one., there isn't a great deal of consistency with these models.