Harley Benton SC-450Plus CB Vintage Series Reviews

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.

Beautiful Guitar, sloppy quality control.

This guitar is pretty good overall, but if you’re looking for a pristine guitar Harley Benton might not be for you.

best bang for the buck!

love it only 2 dead frets

Cracked and chipped

The guitar plays very well and it sounds great. There are cracks where the head meets the neck and a chip at the tuners.

The perfect rock guitar

This thing is just beautiful. The coil tapping roswells really punch above their weight with a wide range of tones. Not too heavy and the neck profile not bad at all. Great instrument for the price. I wish we had had guitars like this back in the 70s!

Amazing guitar for the money

Very impressed at this guitar for the money, or even for 3x the money. Better quality than my Fender Strat in a number of areas. Fret ends finished smoothly, nut cut well and at the right height and width for all strings, action low, no fret buzz, intonation near perfect (just had to adjust 2 strings a little bit), the Roswell Humbuckers sound great with well rounded tones, slightly hot which I like. The coil split opens up new tones which is a nice feature you normally only get on more expensive guitars.

The tuners are nice and stiff and do the job fine, they have held in tune remarkably well. The pegs don't look great, not the marbled effect of more expensive pegs, but doesn't bother me. No tuning problems with the nut which I assume is plastic - strings move freely through the nut and it's easy to tune precisely.

Overall finish is near flawless - just a couple of small blemishes on the neck binding varnish (presumably fret end file damage) and varnish rubbed on top of head stock - nothing worth crying about. One of the tuners is a bit misaligned on the back but you'd never notice unless looking very close.

The paint, varnish and bindings all round are excellent, no colour bleeding or paint spots anywhere. Opened up the back and can confirm it's unshielded so I will probably add shielding in future. Volume knobs are a bit too easy to turn, versus tone knobs which are nice and stiff and very smooth to rotate - feel quality, better quality than the knobs on my Strat. Pickup switch feels good too with a positive action.

The frets came unpolished but perfectly playable, fret ends are all filed well and frets set properly, which I can't say for my Fender Strat . I have already ordered a polishing kit - no big job. Inlays are perfectly set and centered. The Laurel fretboard is lovely and dark - darker than the photos, maybe I got lucky, but it's as dark as a good rosewood board, bordering on ebony (which my Epi Custom Prophecy has). Fretboard is a bit dry so I will oil it at some point. The inlays are well cut and centered and have a nice pearl effect and look nicer than the website photos. The mahogany body is a two piece and looks great on the back side. Neck is a 3 piece and has a nice shape and feel. Neck set joint is flawless.

Weight is slightly heavy as it's mahogany and not chambered. 4.2 kg versus about 3.6 for my Strat. No biggie. It is a Les Paul after all! There is a rounded maple top of about 10mm thickness with I presume a flamed maple veneer on top of that. Arrived well packaged, double boxed with added cardboard packing material. Took 9 days to arrive to UK which is a bit longer than stated.

Been having a blast playing it, really sounds great. Every bit as good as my double bucker Epi Custom SG and Fender Strat, both of which cost many times as much. Already considering my next HB purchase if the 'budget' ones are this good!

Perfect construction, massive sound and comfortable, all that you need from les paul. Machine heads is very reliable. It feels like 400-500 euro guitar.

Great guitar

Received my guitar with low expectations and was pleasantly surprised. A quick set up and it sounded great. Two years later and it’s just a good as the day I got it.

good quality,amazing sound and beautifuel

My favorite go-to guitar

This cherry burst Les Paul filled the bill for my craving to add the Holy Grail of collectibles without paying $3,000 for the Gibson model. Wow. I've owned this guitar for 3 months and it continues to be my favorite go-to guitar after set up and pickup swap. I even took it on vacation with me. It's fun to play, looks great, sounds awesome. It's ironic that it's my cheesiest guitar and I pick it up over my Gibson, Fender, PRS, Jackson, Gretsch, DeAngelico, Ibanez, and others. I would buy another Harley Benton in a heartbeat. Just an FYI. All guitars need TLC set up. My Gibson SG arrived in horrible playability condition. If you don't know how to set up a guitar, watch YouTube. Learn how to adjust relief, action, intonation, polish fets, and how to properly store your guitars to minimize temp and humidity effects. These HBs are incredibly high quality instruments, fun to play, fun to tweak and modify to personalize.

Tomas Ochoa

It arrived almost in perfect state. The only reason I don't give this guitar a five star review is because a spring in the bridge was out of place, and the frets were not polished at all.