Harley Benton ST-20 BK Standard Series 4-stars Reviews

Good for beginners

If you want to start touching the strings and playing chords, you can rely on this. The rating is for the price and the guitar level.

Excellent guitar - Unbeatable value for money

My 4th Harley Benton guitar in as many months. This has been my second purchase from the Standard range. I wanted a Stratocaster copy, but didn't want to spend the extra money for one of the more expensive models. I already have a Squier Affinity Strat, but it is need of some work on the nut that I wouldn't tackle myself. I would have to say that this guitar won't disappoint at the price point. It looks stunning in the black finish, and I found no blemishes on the body or the neck, which is worth the price of the guitar on its own. I prefer Strats with a floating tremolo and was able to achieve that on this guitar without too much trouble. The tension screws on the tremolo block were out of alignment with each other, which was a bit of a problem, but if need be I'll replace the screws. Suffice to say that it is possible to float the tremolo on this guitar without having to buy any replacement parts. It's set for the 009 gauge strings that came with the guitar and I'll be replacing them with 009s in future to save having to readjust the tremolo. What else was wrong? One or two fret ends were very slightly sharp, and the frets could do with filing to take the roughness off them, which you can feel when bending the strings, but other than that I could find no faults. The tuning pegs are best described as adequate, but I won't replace them unless I run into problems. Once the strings were stretched the guitar held tune reasonably well. I lowered the action slightly, but that was only to suit me, and the guitar was well set up when it arrived. Intonation was spot on except the lower E and A, but that could well have been down to me fiddling about with the tremolo block. The pickups may need adjusting, as they are the same height off the strings at both ends instead of being slightly higher on the treble strings, but that is very easy to remedy and I'll do it myself. Some people say the pickups on this guitar aren't great, but you need to experiment with their height and the sound coming from the amp. They are at least as good as on my Squier Affinity Strat, which cost twice the price of this guitar nearly 10 years ago. More to the point, this guitar sounds enough like a Strat to be a keeper. I've played guitars (as an amateur) for nearly 60 years, and this will more than fit the bill for most players. If you are mainly a Strat player then maybe the 62CC would be a better buy, but if you just want a Strat model on your rack, you need look no further. Obviously I have a fair bit of experience of tinkering with guitars, but it is easy to learn from You Tube, including how to float the tremolos on these etc. If you have the dexterity to play it doesn't take much to learn how to set them up etc.

Amazing starter guitar

As a beginner this was an amazing guitar to get started with was cheap enough to not feel like a waste but just enough to feel like I was playing a guitar.

has some noise and need some brige adjusment but for price is good

Decent instrument

Good guitar, the price-quality ratio is very decent, for beginners or those just learning to play.

What a buy!

This guitar is surprisingly well made. Compared to my other guitar of similar features (Strat), This guitar has a better finish on the frets and fingerboard. The only minus I would point out is that the tuning machines are a bit inconsistent. 2 of the 6 have sticky points that affect the micro-tuning of the instrument. Also, you will want to change the strings to your preferred set.

This guitar is perfect as a starter or for an instrument that you want to take to a jam or small gig. Easy and a joy to play.

Very good value, needs locked tuners

My dad wanted to learn the guitar again after decades of endless responsibilities so I bought him this as it was the cheapest electric guitar available from any website we looked.

The quality on this model is phenomenal, blows my bass -with some QC issues- which costs almost twice that out of the water in terms of the paintjob, pickguard, neck and the wood finish.

The sound is pleasant with a digital Amplitude clean tone amp and it works well with distortion too. The only problems we have encountered with this guitar is some heavy fret buzz on the 3 higher strings, can be fixed with a good setup from a luthier, and the tuning problem it has. It goes out of tune pretty much instantly, although it isn't that bad playing alone, trying playing bass-guitar was impossible.

Overall, I am pretty pleased with this purchase, very good value for money. With a proper string and neck setup and with some locked tuners this will be unbeatable at this price!

As a beginner guitar? Awesome

The definition of a strat, classic, slick.

Perfect for rock that counts on distortion and wahing, only bad thing about it is the pickup, wich is unreasonable for such a low price

Well, it works

Well, it works. What can i say more? Everything on the right places. Nothing is missing. The middle pickup turned on one side a little bit.The tuners are not very good. And yes i spent like an hour trying to stop string from buzzing. But I succeeded eventually. So it's ok.

Truly the best guitar for the money with excellent quality.

Although English is not my first language, I wanted to share my thoughts on the Harley Benton ST-20 BK Standard Series guitar. When I saw the reviews for this instrument, I was surprised that it could be such a good guitar for the price. I was curious, so I recently purchased the ST-20 myself. To my pleasant surprise, it exceeded my expectations - it looks and feels more expensive than it actually is, with solid wood and a well-painted finish. The frets are smooth and don't produce any unwanted sounds, which is a big plus.

While the sound of the guitar is good for its price range, it's worth noting that you can easily swap out the pickups if you desire. Personally, I find the stock pickups to be sufficient for my needs as a beginner in the world of electric guitars. Overall, I'm very happy with my purchase and feel that I made the right choice to start my musical journey with the Harley Benton ST-20.

Good modding platform

Look lets be honest, its a 99 euros guitar. I ordered multiple, one was decent after fixing frets. Other one required a lot of work on the neck.

Would not recommend for beginners because of how much work it requires if you get a bad batch, but for the money its a really good mod platform for upgrades. If you can, go for any other more expensive HB ST model as they all came a lot higher quality for not a lot more money.

Price value champion

Very good entry level instrument. I bought is as a traveling guitar and I'm very satisfied with it. One of my friend have an older one. I compared the voices of the two using my amplifier. The sound of my guitar is very similar to the real strato, very nice clean. The sound of the older one is a bit muddy. I think the manufacturers have changed the pickup over the years.

An interesting phenomenon is that the old piece has a better sound without an amplifier.

Better value than most budget strats

I was pleasantly surprised by this guitar. For the cost, the guitar is a great option for an inexpensive strat copy. The neck and fretboard were great. The frets had major fret sprout. Frets had to be polished and filed. The nut material is soft plastic and will need to be replaced within a few years. They should have used a harder plastic.

The body was great except for the routing of the back. They went too far and cut through the body, exposing the front pickup cavity to the rear trem cavity. I had to use epoxy to seal the cavity.

The trem block was very cheap. I tried replacing the trem block with a big brass block however the routing of the bridge cavity was not compatible. I didn't feel like routing it myself so I put in a smaller fender mexican standard block without issue. I also replaced the saddles with stainless steel saddles without issue.

It’s a good beginners guitar

I got this when working abroad and wanted something I could throw around with no guilt.

I was surprised with what I got though....with a nice setup (DIY) and some love it played very well...this was 10 years ago..(Yeah...I’m writing a review 10 years after purchase)...Instill have it with me, gradually changed ever Everything on it over the years, but the soul of it it’s still there.

For the price is a nice piece of equipment.

The best guitar for beginers

This is my second guitar and i really like it. I buy this guitar to try out singlecoil pickups. This guitar is perrfect for clean, crunch and overdrive. If you want to play with high gain distortion, then i would suggest to buy guitar with humbacker pickup.

Great for the price

I’m very happy with the instrument. Very playable right out of the package. Can’t think of a better deal for the price. I needed an affordable decent guitar while I wait for my instruments to be shipped to my new home... This has been perfect, and the service people are awesome.

Solid guitar as a base for upgrades

This guitar is a very solid guitar for the money. The next and body are good and it is a really good platform to build a solid partscaster. Great value for money. Good entry level / beginner guitar if you are prepared to put some work in (intonation, action and fret ends) and upgrade into it (factor in an additional €40-65 for tuning machines and possibly an input jack, although it's still playable/ enjoyable without them). My ratings are taking the price into context.

Positives include:

- the neck and body is good and has a reassuring weight to them;

- the bridge / tremolo seems solid and stays in tune well once the tuners are changed;

- the pickup selector feels solid;

- the strings were much better than I expected but I still replaced mine to clean the fretboard;

- and the paint job was fine.

Negatives include:

- The tuners are really bad and keep slipping, with poor tuning stability (I replaced them straight away with the harley benton locking tuners, which are really good for the money);

- The input jack seems very weak and cuts in and out, so will need to be replaced. Short term solution was to unscrew the plate and bend it back into position but still not solid enough;

- Pick-ups are fine but a little thin sounding.

- Fret ends are a little sharp but easily fixed with a light sanding (first time I've done this and it went fine).

Update: I replaced the input jack with an Allparts gold one and that fixed the cutting out issue and somehow made the pick-ups sound much fuller and remove the thin sounding issue I mentioned above. I was thinking of changing the pick-ups later but I don't think I will bother now. Be careful changing the input jack though, as the new one was too big for the stock plate, so I replaced that with a Fender one (although a decent drill and bit would probably do the job on the stock plate). Guitar sounds good now.

St-20 BK Strat style guitar for £69 ... !!!! Amazing!! And that includes delivery! How do they do it?

I have basically turned it into an ST-62 Hotrod clone by changing the bridge p'up to a hotrail and adding Harley Benton Chrome Roller String Trees, Harley Benton Locking Tuners, strap locks and a switchcraft jack socket.

The build quality is very good indeed. It feels solid as a rock in the hands when playing and I'm impressed. I like this guitar very much.

Harley Benton ST-20

For its price , this is a great option for a beginner. Good build, normal sound. Overall, it makes a good impression. Solid four stars.

Great guitar for the price

Pros: -Feels good

-Sounds good

-Frets are well finished, no meatgrinder

-Straight neck

-Good quality finish

-Since it is not a very expensive guitar, u can do lots of mods

without depreciating the value of the guitar, in fact u can

make it more valuable.

Cons: -Tremelo bar a bit loose but easily fixed with some tape

around the base of the tremelo

-Tuners not the best

-Volume knob is too close to strings

(fixed with some foam under knob)

-Needs slight adjustment on the bridge tuning (no biggie)

-Needs noise shielding (no biggie)

All in all a very nice guitar for a very low price.

With some work u can perfect it easily.

I probably will buy more cheap guitars.