Harley Benton SC-450Plus CB Vintage Series

Excellent Guitar

Would have been all 5 stars, but I had a defective tuning machine. No big deal because I replaced the tuners with Wilkinson Grover knock offs. I own 3 Gibson Les Pauls. I mention this to stress the fact there is no reason to spend $3000.00 for a quality guitar. This plays and sounds great. This is the 3rd SC 450, the other two required nothing but a personal set up.

Not perfect, but close to it for the price.

The Good

It arrived in fine condition via UPS. Upon unboxing, tuning and playing I was pleasantly surprised that there were no major issues and the fretboard was nicely prepared with nicely filed fret ends and the correct amount of bowing in the neck. The inlays on the fretboard are perfectly set. The intonation was also pretty good and the tuners hold tune. The action was a little high but that was fixed in seconds. Also, the flamed maple on my copy is very nice and more pronounced than comes across in the photos. The burst also fades much more gently that is apparent in the photos. The pickups also sound great in my subjective opinion and remind me very much of my 1970s Ibanez Lawsuit Les Paul that I foolishly sold as a young man. Aesthetically, it is a beautiful guitar.

The Bad

It's hard to believe how thoroughly it was really checked by a real human as one of the tone knobs was only half way pushed down onto it's pillar. It was a quick fix, but you'd think that was very obvious. There are a few miniscule bleed spots of stain on the binding and a dollop of varnish from overspray on the body end of the fretboard binding. But these are very minor nit-picks and aren't really visible unless you jam the guitar in your face. Overall the finish is actually pretty nice for such a budget guitar.

The Ugly

One of the bridge post sockets clearly was hammered in at a slightly wonky angle. It doesn't seem to effect intonation that I can tell but it's something that should have been caught in QA. The other complaint I have is about the bridge saddles not having enough travel on the low A and D strings to achieve perfect intonation. It's not terrible but it's probably an issue with the nut which, as others have pointed out, is probably the weakest part of this instrument.

Highly recommended but be prepared to do a bit of fiddling and fine tuning.

Better than Epiphone

i’m so glad i decided to finally pull the trigger on this guitar. the germans found a cheat code at making quality guitars at a low cost. you wouldn’t regret this purchase. better than my 2020 epiphone custom LP

incredible value!

absolutely beautiful guitar and i cant believe the quality for the price, was packed very well and arrived in perfect condition, took 7 days to arrive and customer service was fantastic. Would definitely recommend it!

Unbelievably good for the price!

Was a little wary of all the great reviews for a guitar that costs £170 but I wanted a LP type guitar and can't justify a £500+ price tag. I thought I wouldn't be too upset if it wasn't great for the price but was pleasantly surprised! It looks stunning, setup was good out of the box, haven't had to touch anything. Comfortably low action, no fret buzz, fret rocker found nothing. Sounds great , stays in tune - after a bit of string stretching and the coil split is a bonus , though I'll probably never use that feature. Maybe I got a good one , but I think its a very good one. I'd be happy to just hang it on the wall and look at it. Ok there are a few very minor blemishes on the finish but you have to look VERY hard to see them. Where the neck meets the body there is a very narrow light stripe like someone has rubbed the red overspray of the cherry burst off before it dried but it just looks like a reflection of the white binding on the gloss top. I had been holding it for half an hour before I noticed. The other one is a light spot about 2mm diameter on the back of the neck, so not an issue at all. The only down side is I hate gloss necks so the 600 grit sandpaper has been over the back of the neck and solved that one.

Unbelievably good for the price! I'm tempted by a Harley Benton HSS ST now having seen the quality of this guitar.....

Great for the price

The guitar itself has a lot of versatility for tone at a good price, the guitar is one of my favourites in my collection and it sits comfortably when sitting down or standing up, great for practice or gigging

very good guitar!

comfortable, everything works well, sounds good and it is very responsive. it needed a little bit of fret levelling and for me the neck feels very fat, but im getting used to it :)

Great value

Pictures don't do it justice, the guitar is beautiful. It feels good, sounds great and is really versatile.

Only 4 stars as it did come with some minor blemishes. Small things you won't notice unless you're really looking.

Stunning guitar for the money

I purchased the Harley Benton SC-450Plus CB Vintage Series guitar about a year ago, and after playing it for a while, I'm amazed at how great it is for the price. The build quality of my guitar is impressive, with a great finish and an excellent neck that was straight out of the box. I only had to tweak the truss rod to adjust the neck slightly and lower the bridge to get better action. The fat sounds produced by the Roswell pickups from the humbuckers are outstanding, and I haven't really used the pull/push option. The sustain of the guitar is really impressive too.

Overall, I would give this guitar a 10/10 as a Les Paul copy for less than £200. It's the best you can get for the price.

Excellent!

Although I'm not a seasoned guitarist, this guitar arrived well packed with no defects. Out of the box it was well set up and playable instantly and sounded great. Absolutely love the guitar.