Harley Benton SC-450Plus HB Vintage Series Reviews

Great guitar

When I took this guitar to jam with my friends they immediately noticed the difference. I had been playing an Epiphone Les Paul Special I, which is priced identically. There is no comparison beyond price. The Harley Benton is a superior instrument in every way. I haven't owned a lot of guitars but this is the best guitar I've ever had.

Pros-

Solid feel

Looks beautiful

Playable right out of the box, tune up and go. No bad frets, neck is great, action is nice. Needed slight intonation adjustment on a couple strings, no big deal.

Cons-

I haven't found any yet, although I haven't owned it long.

My drummer told me it sounded like a "professional instrument" if you're the type of person that pays attention to drummers.

Filled my Les Paul desire....

Despite a few quality flaws, way better than expected as far as sound, playability,looks. Thank you!

great sound and very good quality

after lot strats, first les paul

Bought my first LP.A bit disappointed.

First,I don't like the color.I made bi mistake ordering color honey burst. Color is not like on youtube videos.In reality is more like cherry burst.

Electronics for price are more than good,satisfied with guitars' body.

Neck on backside is also good,well painted and polished.

But playing side of neck is very bad.It is absolutely unplayable.Neck is very dry,I have to put some liquid on it,I'll see what liquid,maybe lemon oil.Bindings on neck are so bad that I wish there were no bindings.The frets are deep into bindings,so edges on neck aren't smooth.

Everywhere you can see glue tracks.

But neck profile is very good,fits well in my hand.

With sound satisfied,fulfilling my expectations.

Neck relief and action are OK.

Overall,I'm not very satisfied with guitar.Don't believe everything what you see on the youtube.The guitar is exactly what you can expect from it's price - nothing more.In hands you fell it is VERY cheap guitar.And I'm not so demanding person,for example I'm very satisfied with HB ST-62.

Now I'll give chance to SC-550,to see if is it any better,at least when you hold the guitar to feel a little more expensive.If nothing,I'll stand with HB maple necks, i figured out that HB maple necks are better than this pau furro.

Better than I expected

When I ordered this guitar i didn't expect a great guitar, although I had seen the reviews on these Harley Benton guitars and they seem to be really good, I wasn't convinced but i decided to ordered one anyway.

When the guitar arrived the guitar was packaged in bubble wrap in the cardboard box ( the packaging was acceptable, but I would recommend you would f.x buy a guitar case with it, just so the package will be bigger and have more air bubbles. Especially if you are shipping it over seas ). Over all I am very happy with my purchase and I would highly recommend these guitars for beginners, for modding or for just having fun. For the price point this guitar is way better than I would have expected.

Harley Benton SC 450 Plus

The guitar is wonderful! I love it!

Excellent guitar

I ordered the Harley Benton SC-450Plus HB Vintage Series guitar here in the color Honey Berst. The guitar arrived safely after 2 weeks in Ukraine, whole and unharmed. The box and packaging are good. The appearance and build quality is pretty good for its value. Deca is actually 3 pieces of mahogany with a maple top, fingerboard glued. I did not notice any obvious defects, I like the sound. Immediately after unpacking the guitar was ready for the game, I just had to tweak it a little. The quality of the guitar is very good for its price. The pickups impedance 8 kOm. The pickups are both powerful and readable, the output is about 200 mV. The cut-off is also very pleased. For not very hard extreme styles just fine. I got a good tool. Fret height - 1mm . It is clear that this is not the sound of the Gibson but for this day everything is just fine. Overtones and Sustain sound enough

Gorgeous looking and sounding instrument that is easy to play.

Very happy with my purchase.

Awesome Les paul type guitar

I have over 15 high priced and high quality Guitars and This HB SC 450plus is just awesome. Played it everyday for 2 weeks since i got it. The other night it was sounding like shades of the Allman Bros. and reminded me of my Les Paul i sold in the 80s.

I've never sounded like this before WTF,

Just got my sc 450 and I am absolutely amazed.

I have never sounded like this before its awesome

I have my practice amp at low volume and its rockin .

I have been playing at home with a squier strat for years

and I could never get the sound I wanted, and could not afford

a big name guitar.

I know im late to the party as I only discovered the harley benton name on Henning Paulys You tube site a week ago

but hey I am so glad I did I also got an A/C Tone pedal for ¤30

and together they are amazing

No cons from me, not for this price

Will be ordering more

These HB guitars are awesome. Great upgrade project guitars!

Believe the hype

Ok, im not going to beat around the bush here, this guitar has blown me away.

I have and own some high end guitars, but my son was interested in learning so having already bought a HB Tele which impressed me i bought this les paul copy as reviews seemed good.

Its better than good, it is excellent. Finish all round is top notch, the frets are smooth no sharp edges, the inlays are superb with no filler etc. The top is a lovely tiger stripe, the guitar played straight out box with Daddario strings on too!

I lowered the action which is easy just a straight screwdriver and it?s perfect.

Im keeping this as a gigging guitar!

i play four times a week in a rock pop covers band so im gonna take it on the road and see how it fairs.

Ill update soon.

Overall i cant believe it,how they are making for this money is unbelievable. 10/10

brilliant guitar

ordered from US, shipping time was about a two and a half weeks which was to be expected. The guitar showed up yesterday morning and its wonderful. Its beautiful, it plays great, and comes with options. the only bad thing i can say about this guitar is the back of the body has a slight dent/chip in the paint that occurred during shipping. but other than that the thing tunes great and feels like a very special guitar.

What a bargain

I'm a keen amateur and wanted a Les Paul but couldn't justify buying a Gibson because I wouldn't t earn money from it. Thought I'd give Harley Benton a chance and I'm glad I did.

Pros: Sounds fab, Feels well-balanced. V hot pickups. Looks fab. hugely meaty sound. great neck.

Cons: Can't think of any for the price.

Great guitar if you want a Les Paul sound but still want to have some change in your pocket. I bought my first, then a relative was so impressed he wanted one so I ordered one for him. By that time, it had been upgraded with pull-out pots to make the guitar single coil. A huge improvement. Tempted to buy one for myself in a different finish.

I have had several guitars over the years - this joins my American Tele and Strat and a Di PInto surf guitar as my favourites.

Afordable and good looking vintage style LP.

Pros:

- as written in specifications, this guitar actually have real and thick maple top over mahagony body. Not veener, not print, but thick maple top, which is very rare to found in low level LP guitars.

- neck is straight, good, pretty low action (1.5mm), no dead frets, no buzz, very playable.

- very nice looking

- there are push/pull pots, some people will be happy because of that, although personally I don't see the meaning in splitting humbuckers... I bought guitar with humbuckers because I don't like the sound of single coil.

Cons:

- frets need good and long polishing, because their surface was pretty rough. This maybe should not go under "Cons", as guitar is only 160 ?, so this task to do is somewhat acceptable. On expensive guitars you don't have to do that, but this is not expensive but very cheap guitar.

- no shielding in cavities, same as above

- hardware and plastic parts are cheap

- screew that holds metal clamp on pickguard, is long enough to touch guitar body and sratch finish. my advice is to replace it immediately, before you get mark.

- some minor imperfections

Pickups are somewhere in the middle...can be used, although are bit weak for high gain, but will be enough for some time, at least at the begining. Advise is to use noise gate if you want to crank it up. Neck pickup sound melow and nice, especially with a touch of delay and crunch. But with better aftermarket pickups, I'm sure this guitar will sing.

Regarding hardware, keep in mind that this guitar cost less than a decent pair of humbuckers. So it is not possible to squeeze in Grovers or Gotoh, plus mahagony, maple, nice finish and decent neck.

There is still a lot of place for improvement, but important is that overall price at the end will still be more than affordable.

If you can live with few imperfections on solid, very playable and affordable guitar, then go for it. Stock hardware will be sufficient for some time, and later you can transform this guitar into nice instrument.

Great Product. Sounds Awesome

Wish I had this kind of quality in guitars at this price when I first started playing 30 years ago. my son has just started playing so did not want spend big on a instrument if he wasn't going to stick with it so I bought a Harley Benton. When it arrived was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the build, play-ability and the tones from the pick ups. The action is great, intonation was spot on also. Because of all of the above this has made it easier to play for my son which i can say has stuck at it and is improving day by day. Fantastic job at building a guitar that is easily worth more than is being charged.

cheap but great!

this is a very cheap guitar if we look at the specifications!

Honestly i wasn't expecting this to be so good!

The sound is great to, the humbuckers have a clear and blues sound. The single coil are good as well, zero noise!

Some details are not that perfect, i could notice some fails in the painting but lets face it its a 159¤ guitar....

Overall it exceded my expectations! I recommend this guitar

She's Got The Feel

I already had the SC-450 P90 GT and I already had other guitars with humbuckers, but what the Gold Top had showed me was the "feel" of that single cut design has a special quality of it's own.

Enter the SC-450Plus, same comfortable "SC" feel but with humbucker welly and Err well ... umm ... humbucking quietness.

These new Rockwell pickups are Good; a bit better than before, I'd say. The Split Coil sound is richer than with the older make, having compared them to the Wilkos on my lovely HB35+.

The curved cutaway neck block is definitely an improvement on the classic American shape.

There were no niggly little faults one sometimes gets on lower priced brands, even the fret ends were nicely dressed. A pleasant surprise not to have to get the needle file out.

Cons? - Common to all the budget TOM bridges there was a little slackness in the intonation adjustable saddles. I find that a drop of Loctite stops them from wandering or rattling.

Choosing a colour wasn't easy, all the options look so good.

This is a very difficult guitar to put down.

I highly recommend it.

Great allrounder

Nothing to dislike about this guitar, it was set up and playable right out of the box, major dislike are the stickers on the pull push knobs, change them to paper ones that pull off, we know what they are for but the stickers when taken off leave a terrible residue that takes ages to get off.....

Brilliant Guitar for a Brilliant Price

I was given this guitar for my birthday as it would be my first electric guitar. The sound of this guitar is fantastic and I love the guitar so much. Thumbs up to Harley Benton for a great replica of a classic guitar!