Harley Benton SC-450Plus LD Vintage Series 5-stars Reviews

My Harley Benton SC-450Plus LD Vintage Series

This was the biggest surprise to me. Astonishingly looking and great sounding guitar. It came fully intonation tuned. I went to the jam. This immediately draw attention. What is it, what is it? How much it cost? Guess - I've said. - Well, about $1500 - was the answer. I agreed nodding my head. After that I've received even more respect. Then one day I've compared my SC-450Plus with the standard Les Paul Epiphone with the tag price $860. The guy who owned Epiphone was very sad. SC-450Plus to Epiphone comparison was Mercedes to Kia.

Well, Kia is not that bad at all. But Mercedes is on a different level anyway. The only drawback I see - the tuners. I would like to see the closed Grover type ones. I'll likely upgrade to Grover type shortly. No big deal for me.

So my verdict - Great, Great, Great!!!

Could not find flaws...

Amazing guitar for the price. Arrived packaged really nice and safe. The feel and fit is great. Feels like a guitar that costs 2 to 3 times as much. I was lucky to get a 2 piece body, perfect! The sound it great. The intonation is very close and will get adjusted. The action is also very close to what I want and is very playable out of the box. No one will know you played this price for it.

Cant go wrong for the money.

Ordered this with mixed expectations , however upon its arrival blown away for the cost . Sounds great , looks great and plays great .Had to lower the action a bit and polish a few frets . But that was it . I owned a Vintage v100LD and this is very similar . For the money you cant go wrong .

Not a Lemon

This guitar looks good enough to eat! Much better than the Epi LP I also have. Just needed a quick tuning, but was otherwise perfect in every respect. Unbelievable quality for the money. I am only a hobbyist so cannot give a technical review, but to my amateur eyes and ears this is a great guitar.

Lucky It Made It

Just for reference, I’ve been playing for 35 years. I thought I’d see what the fuss was about these guitars. Wow, it is a great guitar. I have 3 Gibson Les Pauls, and not the cheap models either. The Harley-Benton group should be very proud of what they are building.

I’m not even gonna say it’s good for the money it costs. It is a great instrument period.

Now, “the lucky it made” meaning. The box was totally destroyed and wet by the time it got to Phoenix, Arizona. It was torn crushed and held together with shrink wrap. But to my surprise the guitar didn’t even have a scratch on it! Lucky me! I do not need to modify this guitar.

In all honesty I won’t risk ordering to the USA again.

Splendid guitar

Splendid construction with no flaws. The unit had to be adjusted in terms of string length, all the strings were slightly out of adjustment. Sustain and overall sound is perfect. Recommended.

Great versatile guitar

Very nice guitar for the price.

Good build quality. Nice fret work, no Sharp edges. No buzz.

Set up was almost perfect.

Great range of sounds possible with this model.

From Metal to almost strat like sounds if you use the coil split.

The only thing i do not like is that they pre mount the pickguard.

It looks Much better without it. Better is to include it in the box seperate.

Most people remove it. and than you have 2 holes in the guitar.

The Guitar is PERFECT!

I have purchased a few Harley Bentons now, and this one is the most expensive and the best by far, but still only around $180 shipped. My quick background, I own about 40 guitars and have USA Gibsons and Fenders along with mostly $500 - 1000 guitars and lately these budget type guitars around $100 - 350 so I can mod and fix up. This SC-450 is made better than any epiphone I have ever owned. The binding is actually better than my Gibson LP 57 Historic, but that might be because that guitar is over 20 years old so the wood might have shrank. This is better than a Hardluck king bossman and on par with the $400 - 500 Wolf guitars. So for value it can't be beat.

Now for my particular guitar, it came with the strings slacked so I tuned it up and stretched the strings and it was set up perfectly. Only two of the strings were not intonated correctly, I have not fixed that yet though. NO sharp edges at all. Fit and finish was perfect. Neck feels like a Gibson and not an EPI. Pots worked good and coil tap. Frets feel scratchy but after playing a few hours they polished out. Alot of guitars actually come that way. Only the high end ones are really polished. It sounds the way I like, warm, phat with lots of sustain. Bridge is nice and bright but full. It's an excellent guitar that sounds and plays great! I might not even change out the pickups!

Great guitar the fretboard wood on mine doesn't match the photos

First of all, I'm a beginner and playing guitar is just o hobby for me.

Pros: seems well built, great value for the price

Cons: the fretboard wood doesn't seem to be black wood (which is what the description said when I purchased it) but has a brown colour, just like on this guitar: Harley Benton SC-550 Desert Flame Burst, which is advertised to be Jatoba.

Personal taste: the body of the guitar looks great and better than I expected. It is less orange than in the photos, including the back which is a light brown rather than orange.

Wow! Fine sound and long sustain. Looks great! Nice price. Great guitar! Thank you.

Perfect

Im shocked to say the guitar was flawless i was suspecting it would have needed at least a bit of setting up since its around Christmas and many people are ordering gifts but apart from tuning the bottom 3 strings (which was expected) i got to playing straight away! wow 10/10

A steal of a deal!

Excellent workmanship, perfect finish, sets up perfectly, pickups sound amazing. Pickguard is horrible, bought a replacement for $7 on Amazon. Tuners are scrap metal...bought a new set for $35 on Amazon. In summary, I paid just over $200 for a guitar I will put up against ANY guitar at ANY price! I see the areas where they cut costs and it was in all the right places, in my opinion. Multi-piece body and neck, cheap tuners (I prefer to use my preferred brand anyway), NOT Mother of Pearl inlays and logo. The fretboard feel great...almost as hard as ebony with the feel of Rosewood. I love this guitar and it is the only guitar I have been playing since I bought it.

Unbelievable

Can’t believe how good this guitar.

Great beautiful Les Paul

Great beautiful Les Paul at a ridiculous price. The guitar is made and tuned with high quality. That sounds amazing. On push-pull volume potentiometers to cut off humbuckers.

Excellent guitar

This guitar exceded my expectations and for the priced many much more expensive guitar available to me in Canada. The pickups are very good and can be compared to seymor duncans I own.

N I C E N I C E N I C E

I used to work for the Gibson importer. On balance, this guitar is as good as a genuine LP. OK, so it ain't a real quarter inch flame top. But the finish, playability and sound tops a lot of LPs I've played. For a tenth of the price, what are you waiting for?

By the way, the Roswell pickups are excellent and sound great in single coil mode. The tuners are fine.

A Les Paul at this price point

I was sceptical [:-)] before buying this guitar as I had seen a few very positive reviews on line and needed to check one out for myself.

This was one of the most pleasant surprises I have had. Right out of the box it was pretty well set up and once tuned and truss rod, action and intonation tweeked a little it was as good as any Les Paul I have played. Not only as good but with the extra heal cut the access to the higher frets was even better than the Gibson version. Reminded me of the ESP heal cut somewhat which I love.

Additionally the coil splits make this such a versatile instrument.

I have recorded with it in the studio and taken it out to live sessions and it performs flawlessly and is a joy to play.

The most inspiring instruments make you want to pick them up and play more often and also write new riffs and songs. I have written many with this guitar already. Thoroughly recommended. :-)

Nothing beats this guitar for the price

I received this guitar in March and have not been able to put it down. The guitar plays wonderfully. The pickups are really very good. The only thing that I may change would be the switches and pots but to be honest they really do work just fine.

Indeed a real jem

I have been playing guitar for over 40 years and have a few guitars and still go out and play. I have a 1972 Gibson Les Paul custom, that is just to expensive to take to small gigs and its showing its age. I decided on a whim to purchase this Harley Benton after seeing reviews about quality and sound. First guitar I have ever bought without trying it out first. My surprise was that the only work I had to do was to oil the fretboard and smooth out the frets. I originally thought of gutting the electronics and putting in Seymore Duncans and doing all the wiring with CTS pots, but this guitar impressed me and I have left it pretty much how it was shipped.

Great Value

You won't find a better deal unless Grampa dies and you find a Gibson under the bed. While the shipping to the US requires some patience, it's worth the wait - this is an instrument that looks, feels, and sounds very good - mine was set up and n tune out of the box. Some folks have expressed doubts about the coil-split, but it adds some usable tones to your palette. I highly recommend this guitar.