Harley Benton SC-450Plus VB Vintage Series Reviews

The value gods have answered our prayers!

After watching several YouTube reviews, I decided to purchase this guitar for myself at a fraction of what I believe it's worth. It is absolutely stunning; the craftsmanship is superb in every way and it plays like a dream. This guitar will remain in my collection indefinitely! Thank you H.B.!

Great bye

Very pretty Guitar /after set up and good strings it is playing great great value for the money

Great for the price.

Sold my Gibson LP studio 2009 (needed money) and bought this one instead. I am an amateur and don`t need a professional instrument. Play only at home for my own pleasure.

The only place where this HB is worse then Gibson studio is sound. Pickups on HB are average in tone and output.

Finish of this HB is awesome. You will find few flaws for sure, but they will be miserable and won`t affect anything. BTW on Gibson you will find flaws too.

Neck is almost identical to Gibson LP Studio in terms of feel and playability. Fretwork on HB feels even better. Only flaw is that HB doesn`t polish frets.

Tuners are same feel and quality as Gibson kluson tuners (meaning they are average). Holds the tune well.

Overall - guitar is worse every dollar you pay. Even more.

Outstanding instrument!

The SC-450+ was my first single cut neck-glued electric. Setup, intonation and playing ease was flawless. The tapered heel design on the SC-450+ really helps upper fretboard playing comfort and hand orientation, and the string resonance on notes fretted above the 15th fret was splendid.

The tobacco burst finish with a warm orange tint was beautiful. Body weight was comfortable for long gigs. Non-players commented to me, "That one has the best sound (fullest) of all your guitars". The versatility of tone I could get out of the two split pickups was appreciable, but there was a single coil output dropoff I had to keep volume headroom on the guitar and adjust for in live situations.

I gigged the SC-450+ about 12 times, and then it was stolen out of locked stowage. I replaced it with a Harley Benton SC-550 tobacco burst a year later and have been most pleased with the results since.

I'm not all upset that I can't afford a Gibson LP or two; just give me an instrument that I can play rhythm and lead hard and long on, and I'll be loyal to it forever.

I purchased the SC-450+ new for $181.

I purchased the SC-550 used for $225.

Best deals on the planet; no doubt about it.

just BUY it!

Great quality, tone and looks. I removed the pick guard for aesthetic reasons, but otherwise its a great axe. The split coil does what it says and gives the extra versatility as needed.

Nice ax.

This thing whales out sweet sounds.

Great guitar for an excellent price

For the price everything about this guitar is excellent for the money except the tuners and the sound is fantastic. Buy a set of locking tuners, replace the ones that come stock first thing, do a simple setup you will have no complaints.

Decent Guitar

For its price, you get a lot. You get a single-coil split, which helps when you're into blues and rock. It stays in tune pretty well for a les Paul-styled guitar. The only bad thing with it is the volume knobs. They just feel cheap. But for a person, who is "scared" of buying expensive guitars, suits this instrument the best.

I'm not happy, I did not buy it again.

after 2 weeks the problem with the switch appeared and in the rhyming position it does not work. Defective new guitar. I want to return it but it costs me another 40 euros. I'm not happy, I did not buy it again.

Nice! So nice!

This was my first guitar. I compared her with other forest floors of my friends, and she was in no way inferior to them. The only thing that had to be done with it after buying it from the master was to grind the frets, due to the fact that they were slightly different in height, the strings beat against the frets and rang.

P.S. The harsh Russian winter has overpowered my guitar. I had to sand the ends of the frets a bit, but this happens to all

Unbelievable price and quality!

Great guitar, even if it was double the price i would be satisfied. Buy one!

Good sound but terrible craftsmanship

I had heard very good things about this guitar on youtube and through the reviews but I am positively dissapointed.

Although the guitar has a great tone there is a lot of work to be done of it in order that I can have fun playing it and keep wanting to pick up. For now my Yamaha pacifica V212 gets the upper hand every time because of the fact that:

* It's intonationed properly.

* The frets are correctly leveled.

* Low action and easy to play

All of these things are missing on the Harley Benton SC-450.

Negatives:

When I first got it out of the box, the pickup switches plate immediately fell off. I thought, alright, not a good sign but easy fix, and screwed it back on.

There is also a slight twist in the neck, it's not very much (not as bad as my Harley Benton ST-62 which I decided to send back, I'm still undecided on this one) but it's there.

The guitar is not intonated properly, and there are a lot of uneven frets that need leveling.

One of the pickups are not properly mounted and moves around if you touch it.

Positive:

This guitar has decently low action .

I really like having the option to coil split, just for the fun of it.

It sounds good and is was very fun to play until the faults become too much to overlook.

I don't recommend getting this guitar unless you are ready to put extra time into correcting the mistakes made in production. It's very unfortunate because the price of getting it fixed by a luthier is as much, if not more than what the guitar costs. There is atleast 2-3 hours worth of work needed on this guitar for it be playable, which is very sad considering that someone took the pride to put a tag with their name on it on this guitar (I wish I had kept it so I could put his name here, because he really did a terrible job on both my HB guitars).

But if this is what you want, I would recommend this guitar. Otherwise, be very strict in your notes when you order it of how you want it setup and perhaps they will do it to save the pain of having another guitar sent back.

great musical instrument

since this is my first guitar, I did not find any flaws.

I was very surprised by the quality of the instrument, the assembly. I was satisfied with the sound, too, I had no complaints. I am very pleased with the purchase. I was also pleased with the price of the guitar. I am undoubtedly ready to recommend the product and the store as a whole.

At this price range ? You can get nothing elsw as this guitar !. The looks and the finishing is perfect, the pickups are more than OK! ,you can surely keep them on, it has split coil(with some small tweak you can have dissent single coil sound). The fretboard has some minor issues but nothing that makes the guitar not playable (guitars with double the price have more issues). For beginner or intermediate player just perfect!

Nice

Great tone and playability. Thank you

great singlecut

ive got 5 HB singlecuts, the only con on this one are the pickups, but once replaced, you have a great looking guitar with an awesome neck!

I have to say this guitar exceeded my expectations, had a chunky feel to it, and for the money ,excellent value , could not find any blemishes, and I did look closely . Push, Pull, single double choices work very well on humbuckers. Fairly heavy but not uncomfortable. In summery ,very pleased with purchase.

The tuners are very cheap (a gear inside broke when I was replacing strings), that's the only place where they've cut corners, the rest of the guitar is perfect. Just buy better tuners and you are golden.

Another Great Buy

Love this instrument. Amazing for the price. Sounds as good as the old Les Paul Deluxe I used to have. Everything is clean with no clumsy glueing or grating frets. Set up nicely and is beautiful.

The LP Gibson is scared of!

Originally I had gotten this guitar as a present for my brother, I assumed it wouldn't be very beginner-friendly (which it isn't) and advised against it. Like I thought he didn't play it, the neck was too big and it just didn't sound the way he wanted; lucky for me though, I found it stunning, my hands though small, can play quite comfortably for a long period of time, and the finish on the neck wasn't too sticky, there were no imperfections other than it needing a slight fret polish and set up which I could do myself.

The one draw I personally have is the coil-split, it's fine and the humbuckers otherwise sound kicker for the price, but the tones from the splits were just not there for me, maybe it's the pots or some wiring but it's just not all there for me.

The neck joint is bloody perfect, the frets had no sprout and the binding was wrapped almost perfectly. Now, this isn't going to always be the case, but even with minor imperfections, these guitars are perfect little project pushers.

If you're a new guitarist looking for a sweet axe, I'd tell you to look at another model, however, if you're experienced enough, I'd dare say that the big G would be shaking in their boots with the absolute killer value that follows this guitar.