Harley Benton RB-612CS Classic Series Reviews

Amazed by quality

I had huge doubts about buying this guitar but I wanted a reasonably priced 12 string and so I thought I would try this.

This finish on the guitar is perfect and the only fault I could find was that the two top e strings have been twisted around each other.

I was trying to achieve a Byrds sound and although not perfect the sound is really quite close and good enough for my needs. The guitar achieves a sixties feel and look.

Despite concerns that the neck was much wider than I am used to, the profile and curve make for easy playing. Tuning is relatively easy and the guitar holds tune much better than much more expensive guitars I own.

Since I received it I haven't been able to put it down and I am spending my time playing a more folksy style rather than the Cream and Hendrix stuff I normally play.

Overall this is an excellent guitar and I am absolutely delighted with it.

What a surprise

I was expecting to spend the rest of my life tuning this... I'm pleasantly surprised at how well it holds its tune! It looks lovely, feels nice to play and I'm overall really pleased. It's a bit of a novelty guitar for me but if it's something you want to add to your collection then I wouldn't hesitate in recommending one.

BYrds time!!!!!

Guitar was delivered safely. It arrived with a single ding near the neck pickup and some marks on the neck pickup itself. But no big deal.

Pros:

It's a beautiful looking guitar! What a color splash! Looks better in real life than in pictures!

The guitar sounds great! Love that simple 12 strings electric sound that it churns out. Very useful for rhythm work!

Guitar is very well balanced so it's a breeze to play with.

Tuners are very responsive..12 strings are a pain to tune so that helps!

Cons: Apart from some of the dings and scratches..I have no other unfavourable things to report. :)

The review for this guitar is @ my youtube channel.

Jonathan Koh

Big, solid and punchy guitar

Cannot compare this to other 12 strings as I don?t own any, but this guitar got me suprised.

I actually bought 5 Bentons (recieved 3) and this was absolutley superb. Finish was good (not great) but 4,5 stars. The sound is big and warm.

Very cool guitar for the Birds sound that I want sometimes.

Very good, but....

Liking this guitar very much, just a couple things are bugging me:

-Two binding flaws, one I was able to smooth out with a scraper, the other on the f-hole where the binding pulled away from the side, this will be tricky to fix.

-If these are D'addario strings, I'll eat my hat. Played for an hour and my fingers were coal black with that sooty residue that says "these strings are China originals."

Everything else works well and looks nice, the strings are no big deal, it just seems if you are going to mention it in the item description, that's the way it should come.

hi I got my Harley Benton RB~612cs in December Last year and have to say I am delighted with it! If I could afford a Ricky I would still go with the Harley! It,s at least a grand cheaper and plays and sounds great! I lowered the action a bit and a guitar tech I know has told me that its lower than a Ricky! I like the long headstock as apposed to the Rick shorter one. You can get a good mix with the 2 pickups an you dont really need the Ricky blender Knob! Obviousely this is a budget guitar so things like the knobs are a bit cheap looking I,m getting vintage Ricky ones am I an anorak? lol! Again delighted! yours sincerely Howie Allan.

electric 12 string

lovely 12 string guitar arrived promtly guitar was perfectly set up great tone exellent value for money great customer service

Excellent guitar!

I own instruments that range into the several thousand dollar range. They are all great...and should be. I ordered this guitar on whim. I received it in about a week from Germany. Packed well and in perfect shape. A twelve string that required no neck adjustment? All I did was lower the action and change the strings. I maintains tuning and sounds awesome. I will be spreading the word!

Pretty good 12-string

Taking into account the price range of this guitar, it does pretty good what it has to do. You get this typical 12-string sound you would expect from a higher price range guitar like danelectro or even the rickenbackers. Logically, the price comes with it's negatives in the finish. I had to adjust the bridge and sadle pieces myself a bit with some filing to get the string height better. They weren't from the best quality, but hey: you got a 12-string for under ¤300!

Ric look and sound for 1/10th the price!

Always wanted a 12 string Ric, but theyre too expensive. Saw this & watched some YT reviews & ordered it. Took 10 days to get to PA, USA from Germany. Was amazed at the quality. Finish was flawless, nice binding. Strings were kinda crappy, but once changed the thing played and sounded amazing, especially through my Vox AC-15! Setup and intonation was perfect right out of the box. Although prolly cheap, the pots and switch feel really good. Tuners hold tune well. Surprised how small and light it is. Played a real Ric 360 12 at GuitarCenter the other day, & while it's obviously better, the differance in play and sound were minuscule. Buy one! Seriously, best $250 I've ever spent!

Surprinsgly Good

I didn't know what to expect but took a shot when I bought this guitar. I bought a Chinese Ric knock-off earlier this year and it needed work when I received it. This Harley Benton (made in China) though looks beautiful. The finish is nice. Tuners work well (nice and tight). The pick guard is well done (the Chinese Ric knock-offs come with terrible looking pick guards). I plugged it in and it played with no noise and the pickups sound pretty darn good. The only problem and I had the same issue with the Chinese Ric knock-off is the screws attaching the bridge cover are too long and this does not allow the bridge itself to go very low when you need to set the action lower. The fix is to either install shorter screws or snip the screw ends and the problem is solved (the action on the guitar is too high for my tastes). For the money, this is a total winner. Highly recommended.

Great 12 string for the price

I received my RB-612 the other week and wanted to spend some time with it before writing a review. After playing it for a bit I now feel that I can write a somewhat insightful review. I have been wanting an electric 12 string for a number of years. Unfortunately it is a market not well served by most budget guitar manufacturers. Over the years I have acquired many Chinese made guitars. Out of all of them, this is the best finished example. I couldn't find any major flaw in the finish or construction. The body style has a great retro feel to it. If there is one thing I would change, its the pick guard. Some of the edges are a little rough. The mini-humbuckers sound nice and clear. Not quite as bright as a single coil, but enough high end to maintain that 12 string sparkle. Out of the box I found the guitar to be perfectly playable. The frets all appear to be level, and there are no sharp ends. The action is a little higher than I would like, but I have not been bothered by it enough to perform a setup. Overall, I am very happy with this guitar and am now tempted to pick up the 6 string version!

Not a Rickenbacker, but not ?2000, either.

I've had this in my possession now for a few days. My first impression was to send it back. It arrived with a the octave G string broken, and buzzing on open strings and at the first 5 or so frets. I decided to let it settle in for a bit, before I made a final decision. After a couple of days, I checked out the neck, and, sure enough, it was bent backward, thus causing the buzzing mentioned above. So, I adjusted the neck relief, which fixed that issue. The action was then a bit higher than it was, so I adjusted that, too. Now, it plays well, with no fret buzz, but it will need a fret leveling to get it to optimal playability, but for now, it is fine.

The tuners are a bit wonky, but once they get to pitch, they hold their tuning well enough.

The biggest hassle is getting the strings into their courses. I have large fingers, and it was very fiddly getting the replacement G octave string securely into place on the tail piece.

The sound is decent, and as this is just a 'flavour' for my recordings, will be just fine. It is a bit neck heavy, as one would expect.

In conclusion, I would say I am pleased with my purchase, as there is no way I could justify a real Rickenbacker. It may cost 1/10 the price of a real Ricky, but I don't think it is 1/10th the guitar.

Now, I am going to go play some Beatles, Byrds, and Tom Petty. :-)

Return of the Jangles

What is there to say about this guitar?

Superb quality, regardless of the price, but amazing value for money when taken into account.

Well set up out of the box. Great action, fast enough neck.

Whack up the treble and then you're in full Byrds mode... Roger McGuinn eat your heart out! That said, reign in the treble a bit and you have that very cool Mersey Beat sound! And to raise the stakes even further, it does sound really chimey through my cheapo Boss compressor dupe.

Impossible to find anything even remotely comparable to this fine guitar at this price.

Cannot recommend highly enough.

Harley Benton RB 612 CS Classic

Only discovered this guitar through a friend having one and recommending iit. As a big Beatles fan I always fancied a Rickenbacker 12 string but could not justify the cost so when I found out about the RB 612 Classic i ordered one and was not disappointed. Plays well nicely set up, great sound bringing the 60's to life. This is a great guitar at a great price and for anyone like me who cannot afford the real thing. Sure it's a bit neck heavy and the pick guard is not the most great looking but come on for a 12 string electric at this price who's complaining, certainly not me!

Great guitar

Great guitar and I would highly recommend this to anyone wanting a vintage style 12 string on a budget. Light weight and a joy to play. First impressions were that is this a very well crafted guitar. I can't fault the construction of the body and neck at all. The bridge, tail piece and nut do look and feel a bit cheapish, but at this price you could really replace all those if you waned to and have a very solid guitar at a still very good price. The electrics are also a bit below standard in my opinion, but again, easily replaced if you wanted to go there. Overall I would say this is a great guitar priced at such that you can't really go wrong.

Harley Benton RB-612CS Classic series 12 string Guitar

I already have a 12 string electro-acoustic and wanted a semi solid 12 string for different types of gigs. I ordered this and although not expecting too much it did get fairly consistent reviews from others. How wrong I was. It looks brilliant.

Firstly it arrived extremely quickly, well packed and when I examined it was perfect - no sharp edges no shoddy workmanship no paint runs etc just perfect. I then tuned it up played a little tuned again. The action was set superbly, nice and low with no fret buzz at all. Tones all fine everything worked as it should.

If this did not have the name ''Harley Benton on the top it could easily be mistaken for a guitar of much much better quality. Next day was still in tune perfectly. I have played it a lot since it arrived.

Through an amp there are a good range of tones and you can get a nice '12 string' acousticish sound as well. I have tried through a range of amps, Fishman loudbox,, Fender twin, HH single 12 50watt and all sound excellent. I will probably use the standard guitar amps for this.

It is loud enough to practice 'acoustic' being semi solid and I find it easier to play than my true 12 string acoustic.

It is slightly neck heavy as opposed to a true solid guitar but not enough to break your arm.

In Short if you are thinking of a 12 string semi-solid or acoustic and you may want to amplify it seriously give this a try I don't think you will be disappointed.

Astonishing quality for the price.

I have been looking for a 12 string electric to add to my collection for a while but knew a Rickenbacker was out of the question due to price. Budget electric 12-strings in the UK start at around £400 and rise steeply from there - if you can find them! When I saw this at under £200 I knew I was taking a chance but with mainly good reviews I thought it was worth a go. For a guitar which would only see occasional use, I am not at all disappointed.

Sure you get what you pay for to some extent - the wood is not the highest quality tone wood and I suspect I may need to venture inside the control panel with a soldering iron at some stage, but the build quality on the whole is very good indeed. I remember the days when budget guitars made in Far East Asia and East Germany were virtually unplayable - but not any more it seems. The finish and playability of this Chinese made guitar is excellent and matches guitars many times the price.

On my example I have a very very slight fret buzz at one location - but the neck is straight so it can easily be resolved with a file on the offending fret. If I wanted to upgrade this guitar I would start with the machine heads which could be smoother then look at upgrading the wiring and then possibly the pick-ups (but those fitted aren't at all bad).

Even without these upgrades the guitar is very playable, and at a tenth of the price of the Rickenbacker 620 it does homage to, it is great value for money.

12 String - Harley Benton RB-612CS Classic Series

Really surprised with everything, the quality, the looks and the feel are real good, but... the sound IS EXCELLENT, i have a Rick' and to be honest sound is so very close, that tingle melodic sound, is perfecto.. I love it.

Feels great , plays great so much guitar for the money, yes i recommend, BUY ONE!!

The good, the bad and the ugly

I bought this knowing it was a budget 12 string guitar. It was half the price of the closest electric 12 string and less than a Tenth of the price of a Rickenbacker, so you get what you pay for right?

The good - The construction of this is very good. It's slightly neck heavy as you'd expect but not any problem. There are a few flaws on the finish but you'd have to look hard to find them. My nightmare would be if there were would be buzzes or rattles with the strings due to the budget nature. On mine though, there's not. It's nice and straight, the nut fitting is good. The neck is really playable, the tuning is very stable and I find myself picking it up to play it all the time.

The Bad - The pickup wiring failed almost straightaway. On inspecting behind the scratchplate, the soldering was really poor, the wiring was bad and the quality of the pots was terrible, even for a cheap guitar.

I kind of expected this though and I ended up replacing all the pots for CTS ones, tidied up the wiring and resoldered etc.

It was easy enough to do and the resulting jump in sound quality made it more than worthwhile. I had thought of replacing the Pickups too but actually they're not too bad for now and I can always do that in the future if necessary.

The ugly - In copying the Rickenbacker style control panel. The makers stuck two bits of plasticcy looking scratchplate material together roughly. It had sharp edges and looked bad. As I had the scratchplate off to fix the wiring anyway, I made an attempt to replace the scratchplate with a piece of white Pearliod material I had left over from a hobby project. The result turned out great and really improves the look of the guitar. It was easy to do and the guitar now looks and plays so well that people comment on it all the time.

I would recommend this guitar but would just put a warning that the wiring and quality of the pots is poor and you may have to rectify that.

Overall though, I'd buy one again. Even with the cost of parts etc this guitar is €150 cheaper than the nearest 12 string electric I've seen and I'm really happy with it.