Harley Benton SC-450Plus VB Vintage Series Reviews

Great for the money

For the money, it's a very good guitar. The Alnico 5 pickups sound great, but don't match well. I found that at whatever height I set them to, either the bridge is too bright or the neck is too muddy. So I replaced them with Alnico II PAF humbuckers.

The neck is pretty thick, but comfortable and the maple top looks amazing.

I didn't really like the coil split option for this guitar. Coil split gives a significant volume drop and sounds very shrill in comparison to the standard humbucker mode. If you want switching in this guitar, I would recommend putting a series parallel switch in place, instead of coil split.

Great AXE for the price!

At 74 yr's. young, Getting back to pickin & grinnin again! In the 70's I played lean guitar in the oldies band "GOLD" & loved every minute.Still have my vintage SG & rickenbacker 12 string worth lots of gold but I love playing my SC-450Plus. Came in great shape & with a little tweaking it is the SHEETS!

Best Bang for your Buck!

So as of this review, this guitar is my favorite in my line up of electric axes. Let me start by saying this guitar is well worth the price paid. Overall feel, sound, and build, is near perfect (and at this price point is extraordinary). Only flaw I found with my SC-450Plus VB was that the Higher strings tuning pegs (G,B,E) are noticeably farther out than the lower side tuning pegs. So in other words they are not completely centered on the headstock. This is purely cosmetic and does not affect the playing or the tune-abilty of the guitar. Other than that, the sound of the pick ups, the action, and the neck width are exactly what I wanted. Great finish also. The push/pull pots are an added bonus at this price point. This thing plays good and sounds good! Rock on HB!

Looks, and feels like the real thing

This guitar is a real beauty. Plays just like a real Les Paul, and feels like one too. Easy to fret all the way up the neck. A great value for the price.

What’s not to like?

Just learning to play and my skills don’t justify a Gibson, so I saw all the online YouTube reviews and decided it was worth the chance. I also own a Fender telecaster, and honestly I enjoy them both equally in spite of the drastic difference in price. I love the way the Harley Benton feels and it’s fun to play. Definitely would buy more Harley Benton guitars. Awesome value.

Great guitar for a low price, awesome bargain

I've been playing this guitar for a while and I've got to say this is ones a steal lads. Great tone and the guitar feels well put. I would recommend this for beginners and intermediate players.

The only problem I've faced is that the tuners may be a bit off, but nothing like a replacement wont fix.

F***ing amazing . End of story.

If you don't know how to file frets or set up a guitar so it plays better than a Gibson then don't worry, you can play it straight out of the box! Lower the action a bit (at the bridge) and you have have got yourself a beauty that Gibson will have to work hard at matching.

If you think you will need to upgrade the pups , just don't bother . You will just want to change them back. Roswell pickups have very high resistance , hence a very high output. (45 years of gigging experience , I'm blown away) I can't stop buying Harley Benton guitars.

Stop Nit Picking for the Money Guys

We All Know that Pickups, Strings Machine Heads Knobs ETC. Can be improved so Go And Spend 3 Grand Then. and there will be something you don't like on that one either. Trust me I know , That's the way Guitars are we are all different people with different Tastes in things. some people like low action others High, some people like a chunky neck, others don't, All im saying is for the money guys you cant beat it. If you have a few skills in setting a guitar up then theres no problem ive been playing guitar for 40 years I Bought this for Home use Only In My Studio and was very impressed. Straight out of the box the Action was very good, But I did tweak it a little as I like really Low Action. Id like to see a Smaller Neck some Day on these Guitars about a 40mm Nut with a Softer C Shape profile ( That's just my preference ) The Quality of the build of the guitar was Insanely Fantastic Overall for me Just Fantastic for the money Coil Taps As Well

An amazing deal

This is truly an amazing deal. This is my first Harley Benton but surely it won't be the last.

The first thing that jumps to the eye is obviously the price: at 169€, I thought "well the rewiews are good, but let's keep our expectations low, it's still a budget guitar". And it is, but the quality is astonishing, so my expectations were totally exceeded.

The guitar itself is very beautiful, the top is gorgeous and every electromechanical part works fine (except the pickup selector that is a bit wobbly, but no big deal). I didn't found any scratch or damage and the finish looks very nice. But the best part is that the setup is really unexpectedly good to go, i could have tuned it up and played a gig 2 minutes right after the unboxing. The frets are well leveled and there aren't sharp fret ends, and overall every detail is treated with great attention and makes this guitar feel and look WAY more expensive than it actually is.

One more detail, if you're like me, probably you've spent hours upon hours looking for reviews and demos of this product, and maybe you've heard that "the pickup splitter sticker, that sits under the two volume knobs, is glued and it's a pain to get rid of". I'm glad to say that it is no more, because now they're just two pieces of paper resting on the guitar.

Lastly, great job from the client service that helped me with the sostitution (the first one arrived seriously damaged) in a very professional, accomodating and efficient way.

So, in conclusion, if you're looking for a budget guitar, wether for a beginner, or as a modding starter, or even as your main instrument, this is a very solid choice, I'm not joking when I say this has been one of the best deals of my entire life.

Thank you, see you in a couple of months for another one.

More than expected!!!

I unboxed my first Harley Benton SC 450 Plus VB , I have been searching for 8 hours to find something wrong with it. Out of the box it was in tune except for the D string. Intonation was spot on, lowered the bridge height, and have been playing it on and off for 7 hours. It is still in tune. The fret edges are much better than my Epiphone and so far I haven't found any uneven frets. They seemed a bit "unpolished" at first but are smoothing out really well from being played. I won't say the Roswell pickups are better than my Gibson 490 and 498 however they DO actually sustain longer. I might change out the switch to a real LP switch but it works just fine. The body is nicely finished no binding issues or flaws whatsoever. The neck heel design is very comfortable. Coil taps are a nice bonus I really don't think any guitar can compete with it for less than $500. Time will tell how well built it really is, but for the price, who cares.

Don't know how they do it

Fit and Finish: Beautiful, well finished, no marks or scratches. Looks fabulous

Set Up: Very good, no buzzing strings, action slightly higher than I'd like but a slight truss rod adjustment sorted that.

Pick-Ups With Clean Sound: I'm no Les Paul expert but the Roswells ring out nicely. Tone and volume controls are very effective, split coils a great feature

Nut: Set correctly

Tuners: Cheap looking but workabke/responsive. This stays in tune despite some vigorous bending

Overall: A great product for an unbelievable price. This is my second Harley Benton with a third on the way. Highly recommended if you aren't a badge snob

Not bad for the money

Keeping in mind that this guitar costs less than £150, it's not bad. The pickups are a little muddy sounding, and the coil tap barely makes a difference to the sound. The switch and pots all needed tightening on my copy when it arrived. The tuning pegs have that vintage look, but they are not accurate enough, so tuning can be pain. The neck is ok, although it has a flat radius that takes some getting used to. Also has a lot of finger noise from the fretboard, almost as if the neck is hollow. On the plus side, it's well finished, and a reasonable weight, although nothing like a real Les Paul. There's a lot of things that bug me about it, but considering it's half the price of even an Epiphone, it's really not too bad.

04/30/20 Update: So, since the purchase, I've discovered a few other issues with the guitar. First, the coil tap in the bridge pickup wasn't connected, so it was permanently in Humbucker mode. Easy fix, but annoying. Then both(!) strap pins fell out and had to be shimmed and glued in. Next, one of the bushings on the posts for the tailpiece fell out while I was restringing the guitar. The hole for it was far too big, so again it had to be shimmed. I'd still rate the overall quality as OKAY, but the quality control on these is AWFUL. You might get a good one, you might get a dog.

Incredible value

Overall an incredible value. Guitar sounds great, plays really well right out of the box. No hum or noise even though a MXR overdrive box. Setup was pretty close to what I would use. Very playable. I could gig with this tonight and it arrived 2 hours ago. Flame top is great, joints, hardware are well above expectations. Pickups are pretty darn hot! Tuners seems to work well. Frets were polished and no issues on the edge of the fretboard. I have no reasons right now to "upgrade" anything. Can't believe they can sell this for $157. What a nice instrument.

Nice job

Beautiful guitar,sounds great.

Quality starting instrument and more

Firstly, I have been using this HB guitar for quite some time now in rehearsals as it does not hurt to travel with it to different rehearsal places.

All in all, a guitar that everyone could use for either gigging or learning to play. For me, it has not been an issue at all to use as replacement guitar if my main axe fails or string breaks.

Pros - it was set up really nicely and the guitar just felt phenomenal. The coil-split function is usable and gives a true variety of tones that you can use. The finish on the guitar was great and you can't really ask for much more when it comes to guitar under 200 Euro.

Cons - there are few drawbacks that did make me sad a bit. Firstly, the issue of having to soder ground wire was making me sad but considering the travel distance, I passed it as an unfortunate circumstance. The most important thing though is the fact that the humbucker sound from the Stock Roswell pickups is very muddy, yes, you could say that being a bit muddy is a characteristic of LP Style, but for me, it just didn't feel good, especially in rhythm rock parts, details get lost.

Altogether a quality instrument to have either as your starting guitar (Beware, the neck is a true baseball bat) or as a secondary guitar for gigs.

Blown away

The guitar looks incredible, and the finish is flawless. Does not look like a guitar that cost $157.00. The action is a little high for my taste, and one of the pick ups is sitting a little higher on one side. I am cool with that at this price point. I am sure its a easy fix. I love this guitar and I plan on buying a few more of the Harley Benton guitars.

Unbelievable for this price!

First of all, this guitar should cost at least twice, or thrice the price it costs. As soon as I took it in my hands I was amazed with the build quality. There were not even a slightest signs of poor craftsmanship. At this price point you usually feel the sharp edges of the frets protruding from the fretboard - but this one has silky smooth finish all over the body. Just holding the guitar is a pure joy. The hardware also seems to be of great quality too! The only thing where you could feel they've cut some corners price-wise are the tuners - they feel a bit flimsy and inconsistent, but they still hold the tune fairly well.

As for the sound - well nothing bad to say in that area either - the humbuckers are well defined and whole guitar has very low self noise. Playing it on a high gain amp is no problem at all.

So, a quick summary:

PROs:

- Build quality

- Looks

- Great sound

- Low noise

CONs:

- Tuners a bit loose

I'm very satisfied with it and I'm already planning to get another one for different tuning.

Amazing guitar at an amazing price

Straight out of the box this guitar looks amazing. It's very well finished and you'd never guess it was a budget model. Same goes for the sound, I plugged it into a Vox Pathfinder 10 watt practice amp and it sounds amazing, I love it. The coil splitting is an added bonus to give more versatility with single-coil type sounds as well. Clean tones on the neck pickup are just gorgeous. It's solidly built and comfy to play with no sharp fret ends. One small niggle is that the strings were a little dirty, but a quick blast of fast fret soon cleaned them up.

Pros

- Price is unbeatable

- Excellent finish, it looks great on your wall

- Excellent tones, especially clean on the neck pickup

- Good set up out of the box

- Coil splitting adds versatility

Cons

- 1 or 2 frets could do with a polish (no big deal)

- Tuner aren't the best quality

- Tone and volume pots aren't the best, but still do the job

Overall, this is a great guitar for beginners and advanced players alike. Straight out of the box, beginners will love it. More advanced players may want to do a bit of fret polishing and throw on some of their favourite strings, then it's ready to rock. Also a great platform to upgrade from if you want to further down the line.

I will divide this review in pros and cons to help the process.

Pros:

-Affordable

-Good wood quality, hardware and nice appearance

-Descent sound for the price

-Tuning is stable

Cons:

-The fretboard was as dry it can get

-One of the tuning keys it feels like stuck and its difficult to tune

-The fretboard is not as wide as I would like to feel comfortable. Its not a big problem, maybe 2-3 mm.

Overall a fun guitar to play.

nice!

Pretty much what I expected. one of the tuning pegs slips but i was planning on changing them anyway. My only complaint is there is some kind of filler wood where the lower body meets the neck. It does not match and looks pretty horrible. I do not see anything like it in the pictures posted. I hope I just got a bad one as I am planning on buying several more Harley Bentons