Harley Benton SC-1000 WH Progressive Line Reviews

Small issues, great guitar

Bridge had a pretty big screwdriver gouge in it but not noticeable enough to send back in. Volume knobs have basically 3 settings "off-whisper-too loud." But aside from that, what you're getting for 180 dollars is top notch. Looks gorgeous, plays great. Expect to have to lower the action a bit out of the box, but every guitar need minor adjustments out of the box. Pickups sound great. I've owned epiphone LPs and this is every bit as nice for a significant discount.

Amazing guitar for this price!

The guitar arrived on time and without any problem/damage. It looks really nice and feels good at my hands. The neck is perfect for me, almost the same with my Epiphone Explorer 1958 Korina, so I won't have problem to get used to it. The action is good and the guitar sounds really nice with significant high sustain. For this price I am very satisfied with what I got!

great mod platform.

Loved just about everything about it, exept the bridge pickup.

ordered a set of emg 81/85 to put in it but ended up just using the 81 in the bridge and kept the neck pickup.

loved it so much that even tho it came to me with a pretty bad break in the top of the headstock i didnt want to return it. so i kept it and played it

highly recomended

Best eclipse ever

If you want to play Metallcore through a dsp plugin, this is the best choice. It doesn't have a clean tone, btw, but who cares!

Solid choice for low price.

I bought this a few months short a year ago at time of writing and it still slaps. Delivery was fast and got here to the States with no issues. I eventually switched out the vol/tone knobs for acrylic clear ones just because personal preference

Great guitar for the price

Good solid and fun to play guitar. My expectations were pretty low when I bought it as I was fully expecting to have to replace some components. To my pleasure, not much was needing to be done.

Pros:

- Looks great

- Sounds great

- Plays great

- No noticeable blemishes

Cons:

- Struggles to stay in tune... still working through that. I may end up replacing the tuners and nut... but i'm purposely taking my time in modifying it

- There were some pretty sharp fret edges - however, some fine grit steel wool solved that problem with just a few strokes.

Will definitely be purchasing some more Harley Benton equipment as I expand my collection.

Damn good for the price

For the price, it really cant get much better. The perfect Metal heads guitar for beginners, or for modders looking for a decent platform to try different active pickups on. Light flaking of the lacquer in certain areas, but nothing that makes it unplayable. a solid purchase imo

Kind of disappointed

It looks nice, but I'm going to have to spend a lot of time and some money to upgrade it to a decent guitar.

The volume pots are basically useless, i.e., they work essentially as a switch (I'm guessing they are the wrong value). Comes with cheap dime-sized pots, and the wiring is sloppy, e.g., wires twisted together with a piece of tape over it. Not really impressed with the tuners; they feel kind of sloppy so I will probably replace them. Knobs rub on the body of the guitar. The plate over the electronics on the back doesn't sit flush on the guitar. The action came set crazy high, so I had to adjust it way down and, of course, the pickups as well. Was not really happy that the adjusting screws on the bridge came tool damaged. Of course, the frets are going to need work, i.e. polishing and filing the ends. Necks a bit on the beefy side, kind of like the old Gibsons. Other than that, it sounds pretty good, but I'm already considering changing the pickups. I thought it would be nicer considering I have another HB guitar that I love.

Better than expected

was looking for an LP style guitar for a while and read some good reviews about the SC-1000 Progressive. When it arrived, i was expecting a good €200 guitar, but it far surpassed my expectations. Build quality was excellent and it sounded great out of the box. very comfortable to play and has been used every day since i got it. So good, even friends are contemplating buying one. Have used it straight into Marshall amp and cab, thru an Eleven rack and DI'd into Pro Tools with a range of plugins and it sounds great in all.

My first HB. Delivery was fast, arrived in 3 or so days. The headstock has 3 points without paint but it doesn't affect anything and it is at the back, so I can't even see it normally.

Build quality is good, I'll probably just adjust string height and intonation, it is a little higher than I would prefer. Fret ends feel nice, just need some polishing, oil, and string changing

As for the sound, it is very responsive, has a sustain that goes on for days and has a great tone with heavy distortion. I bought the guitar with the thought of upgrading to EMGs in mind but I'm quite happy with the HBZ. Playing with cleans is a little bit harder, you need to find the sweet spot with the volume knob to balance output and clarity.

The neck feels similar to my other Les Pauls, not particularly thin but definitely not thick.

At this price range it is impossible to imagine any manufacturer getting even close to the quality, especially considering that it uses active pickups, bindings all over the guitar, different headstock, etc.

Comparing to a Squier that I had in the same price range, the HB feels much higher quality, even the unbranded tuners are better.

I can't really point a negative but you need to keep in mind that this is a budget option!

excelent

for the price this guitar is an absolute powerhouse for metal providing lots of gain to drive the amp.

A great beginner metal guitar indeed

Pros :

single cut full mahogany straight through guitar

decent pickups

cons:

frets could use a little bit of polishing

Not a bad little guitar for the price

Pros:

- Nice finish, although more white than antique white

- insane high output pickups (this is also a con)

- nice action

- great value!

Cons:

- insane high output pickups (you won't get a clean tone without a fight)

There is no way to dial back this monster, so as long as you're not looking to be able to dial it back a little, and you're ok with its relentless output.. you'll enjoy this!

you get a lot of bang for your buck with this guitar, and it's very good looking too! if I had to nitpick I'd wonder how my guitars's frets and fret board passed inspection as the frets needed polishing and the fret board needed some cleaning and oiling, nothing major and it doesn't effect it much but it shouldn't be an issue with a new guitar.

Surprisingly good for it’s price

I know getting cheap guitars can be a shot in the dark, Ive heard plenty of stories, so I wasn’t expecting anything incredible. And I was pleasantly surprised. The guitar not only looks gorgeous, it also sounds really good.

I’m no master on guitars, I know a few things and I’d say for a beginner this would be pretty great. I think one thing to notice would be the weight of it. The body is mahogany, which makes it heavy even for an electric. And the active pickups are a bit noisy, but I wouldn’t say that’s a reason not to buy it. The guitar really does sound great. The tuners also hold really well which was another pleasant surprise.

Definitely recommend it if you’re getting into playing.

Superb value!

Very happy with the guitar.

Very bad QC

As I've seen a lot of videos on youtube about HB and thought about trying out a LP-shaped guitar I've decided to buy this particular model as it sounded pretty good to play metal.

What I have received though, is a mess of a guitar. Every bit has a flaw - be it neck, pots, humbuckers, body. It feels like winning a lottery, expect I've lost in every way possible. I didn't send this guitar back as I have spend pretty much 50% of its rrp trying to make it playable.

This guitar needed complete fret dressing, oiling and even cleaning as it had dirt all over the place and my hands were black just after holding the guitar. Soldering felt like it was done by a guy who has never done it before, wire 'management' in the cavity was also pretty bad as there was no untangled wires. There are 500k pots used, which is wrong for active pickups and the capacitor used was leaking direct current. Neck pickup's output is 10 times stronger than f/e EMG 81, which is just absurd and it's leaking huge AC. I've tried contacting support for an electric schematic which they supposedly 'didn't have'. I haven't sent this guitar back as I have spent a decent amount of money and time trying to make it playable.

Anyway, this guitar made me learn a lot about the things you can mess up while making a guitar. Thank you ;)

Best Eclipse for the price

Simply the best lespaully guitar for active pickup sound. 24 frets, short scale and comfortable modern C neck profile are the perfect choice for make some Thrash, Speed or Black metal riffs. It is full mahogany built and long tenon neck set. In result it has a beautiful sustain and resonation in your hands.

But there are some cons in my guitar too. At first, the HBZ active pickups has a bit noise, not critical, but with compressor it will be annoying thing,,, At second, frets are not polished and you won't be able to play high bands and deep vibratos without polishing fret's tops.

If you can waste some time to fix that cons, you have got a perfect guitar for playing heavy riffs)))

not the best sound but

not the greatest guitar around, but for the money maybe it is. i use it primarly to compose (am a bass player) and needed a cheap guitar to have around just in case. totally worth it

Superb guitar Excellent value

I bought this as a present for my Brother, before giving it to him I gave i a good try out. There we absolutely no quality issues and it was perfectly finished. I tried it through my set up at home and at first had some difficulty getting the sort of sounds I like. this is mainly because I am not used to Les Paul style guitars and the active pickups were a slight mystery. However, with a little perseverance I started getting great ZZ top style sounds of the back pickup and rich mellow jazzy tones of the front. With my brother it was an instant hit and he got superb sounds from it instantaneously. The guitar is a high quality instrument and whilst I have not much experience of high end Les Paul style guitars and Active pick ups this guitar must challenge many of the medium range models on the market if not some you can pay a hell of a lot of money for.

How the hell is it this cheap???

Living in Australia everything is ridiculously expensive in the gear world. When I purchased this I had no idea what to expect, It was mindblowing plugging it in and playing, it felt better than most epiphones and being around half the price of them, it felt perfect and looks incredible and unique. The only issue is a bit of a sharp nut but that's nothing a small file can fix, GET THESE GUITARS