Harley Benton SC-450 P90 GT Classic Series Reviews

Surprising quality for the price.

The bones of this guitar...ie, the wood, general construction and finish...are very, very good. Odd to have an LP style guitar made from what looks like maple. Pale wood. But it's a comfortable weight, resonates nicely and seems well made. I like how the headstock is spliced onto the neck at the 1st and 2nd frets...no weak spot at the nut if it gets dropped.

Neck profile is abit odd. Chunky and thick and not unlike some real 1950s guitars lve played. First reaction is 'eewww'... but then you find yourself enjoying playing it. The upper fret access is much better than the traditional LP neck/body join.

The frets needed leveling and polishing and the fretboard was dry and grubby. But after doing the work and setting it up with a fresh set of strings it's lovely to play.

Hardware is cheap and cheerful but works.

Pickups are non-descript P90s and a touch dull, but l changed the volume pots to 1meg ones...an experiment as l happened to have a pair...and they now sound really nice. Classic goldtop P90 sound.

Good value if you don't mind a bit of tinkering and tidying.

Amazing sound for the price.

I really like the HB single cut guitars, with a little tweaking and know how you can have a really excellent guitar on a budget. I got this due to the P90's, wanting a different sound from my favorite guitar shape.

The pickups are excellent, they range from bell like single coil sounds to full on blues/rock grit, really very versatile, they are unbranded, but are really superb pups.

The finish on the guitar was overall very good, the frets, although needing a good polish, were very well finished, and I was able to get the action down low. The neck is a clunker, quite thick, but after a few minutes it feels good, although I did scour off the lacquer as its quite glossy and thick.

Really love the tones from this excellent guitar, for the price it's unbelievable.

It's a great guitar! I'm only a little disappointed in the color, it's not gold it's orange, maybe it is only mine, but the guitar is great, only the finish was not what I tought it would be.

Excellent value LP

Looks great, superb flawless gold top finish. Weighty, which I like. Very good sound, compares very well with an Epiphone LP in my opinion.

For just over £100 this is a very nice guitar.

Unbelievable

I've been a gigging guitarist for nearly 20 years now and truth be told this guitar blew me away..

Straight out of the box the action was perfect, the intonation needed a little tweaking but literally ten minutes after opening the box the guitar was ready to go.

The pick ups are nice and punchy, the neck has a nice roundness to it and is very comfortable to play.

This is now my go to gigging guitar..!

I have owned many Gibson guitars over the years and I have to say this guitar is a better put together instrument than a good 90% of the gibsons I've owned.

Get one... Don't think about it... Just get one...

Hb classic gt-p-90

This guitar out of the box was well set up,first impressions count, regardless of how much money you pay,

No scratches or blemishes, dents,or glue residue, overall very well constructed and a very good weight,

The quality of the gold top was very impressive

Sound:: plugged in through my Marshall code 50,I was surprised at how long this guitar sustained for like I said before this guitar is a heavy weight.

Neck pick up:: I play blues to get that dirty break up you need I rolled the tone off then turned the volume down to,3/4 , and checked out the sound, I was extremely pleased with this sound not to muddy so you couldn't make out the clarity off each string,with the volume on full and the tone on full I got quite a good grunt out of it.

Middle pickup:: the sound with half volume and half tone was more prevelent on the treble side of things so I just tweaked a bit, until I found the correct setting to my preference overall a great throaty mid.

Bridge pickup:: overall sound on the bridge pickup was very clear, very responsive, you can still get a nice chime out of the pickups even though they are p-90s

You get a hell of a lot of guitar for the small amount of euros this costs, great addition to a collection,also a great go to every day guitar, this guitar makes me want to pick it up and play it which is always a good indication to me that it's a good product and especially at this price point.

Aesthetically very nice to look at,great instrument to play, good hard wear, three way switch and all volume and tone worked fine as they should,frets were finished well no sharp edges,the machine heads do there job ok,at this price point I have no complaints, overall this guitar is phenomenal for the money, hope this review has been helpful.

Hard to beat!

What do you want out of an instrument? I want an instrument that makes me WANT to play more. This guitar does just that. It calls to me. It begs to be played. It looks so beautiful and it feels so good in my hands that I don?t want to put it down. I?m a guitar enthusiast (not a professional)?I play mostly for fun with family and friends and I am learning how to work on/rebuild electric guitars. I guess you?d say that electric guitars are my obsession.

The box arrived in the USA (Texas) safely in roughly two weeks, and it was looked gorgeous when I took it out of the box. There was only one finish problem on the wood of the guitar: a small color blemish on the side of the headstock (like a dark smudge under the clear coat). It isn?t large, but it is noticeable, and it?s on the side facing me. It wasn?t worth sending back across the Atlantic Ocean, but I will always see it when I pick up the guitar. Also, the cream plastics aren?t so great in terms of cut and color. The switch indicator (rhythm / treble) has a greenish hue, while the P90 pickup covers and the pick guard have more of a peach hue. The edges of the pick guard are very ragged as well. To be honest, none of the cream parts seem to be the ?correct? or ?vintage? look, but that?s a relatively cheap correction if you are a stickler for detail.

The only serious issue for me on this guitar is that the pickups (which are NOT Wilkinson, by the way) sound pretty poor (in my opinion). I realize that this is a purely subjective point?you may love the pickups?but I just couldn?t dial in a decent sound on any of my amps. I also didn?t feel like they sounded in any way like true P90 pickups. Keep in mind that I tend to swap out the pickups on all of my guitars, so I had been planning on removing the stock pickups unless I found them amazing. They didn?t work for me, so they got replaced.

I?m no stranger to high-end guitars, but I?m at a point in my life when I find it more enjoyable to take an inexpensive instrument and see what I can squeeze out of it. Sometimes this includes replacing everything but the wood! I?ve taken an Epiphone (that cost more than this Harley Benton, by the way), and I literally stripped it to bare wood and refinished/replaced everything but the frets! This Harley Benton blows it away?and I only changed the pickups and the strings on the HB (the stock strings were not D?Addario and they were AWFUL?but I always change strings on new guitars anyhow).

The bottom line is that this guitar is truly excellent. Before the new pickups it LOOKED and FELT great to play unplugged?wonderful fit and finish, amazing resonance unplugged. Once I swapped the pickups, this is one of my favorite guitars. I love the look, the feel, the sounds, and the fact that I don?t worry about it getting damaged. Is it perfect? No. But do I love it? Absolutely. At $120 it is an incredible deal?I don?t think you can do better.

Excellent Quality. Incredible price. Highly recommended.

Purchased product to add to small collection of not so expensive guitars for home use.

Build quality excellent. Beautiful top gold finish free of any imperfections (no scratches, etc.). Finish on back of two piece body equally as nice. Matching of wood grain could have been better. Bindings nicely finished, including neck. Mother of pearl inlays very tidy. Frets nicely finished with no sharp edges. Neck and fret board feel very nice.

Machine heads turn smoothly, as do volume and tone controls. Pickup switch has good feel.

Action very good. Intonation needed adjusting. Intonation adjustment on low E barely manageable (bridge could have been angled more to accommodate adjustment on low E). Proper upward bow on neck and no truss rod adjustment required.

P90 pickups sound very good. No fret buss. Holds tuning well.

Excellent Quality. Incredible price. Highly recommended.

After a few months, a couple of issues did arise;

(1) high E has a tendency to slip off of the fret, especially when doing pull offs (perhaps because the string spacings on the nut are too wide and the fret ends are cut on too much of an angle)

(2) strings stay out of tune after bending.

Replaced the nut with one from TUSQ and all is perfect. A higher quality nut should have been used originally.

Golden Delicious!

Out of the box this guitar left black sooty stuff on my fingers after playing it and a few frets were uneven (nothing severe though), all needed a serious polish as they felt a bit gritty. HOWEVER: In this price range it is an AMAZING guitar! I've not seen any guitar for even 2-3 times the price come in any better playable condition than this one.

The pickups have real snarl and bite, cosmetically it is a work of art, despite the pickguard plastic color not matching the other bits & trim. You simply cannot find an instrument as beautiful, playable and impressive for this price.The tuners stay in tune, the binding and woodwork is flawless and most importantly, it sounds awesome. After you do some fret leveling (very mild) and polishing, some adjusting of nut slot heights & intonation, nothing Epiphone or entry level Gibson sells can touch it! I highly recommend this guitar.

Stunning Value

I immediately changed out the strings on this guitar to quality 10-46 strings. Adjusted the intonation and that was it, good to go. No, it's not as good as the SC550 I purchased recently in terms of build quality, but it's half the price! I wanted a GT with P90's. If there was a higher quality GT P90 option from the Harley Benton range then I probably would have opted for that, but it looks the part and play's really well. I don't know how they produce their guitars for this price, long may they continue. Very pleased!