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

Worth the shipping to North America

The best guitar for the money by far.

Of note:

There is little/no weight relief, so this is a heavy unit. Whether or not that's good for you is individual, but I'm OK because I don't gig with it and I have a comfortable strap.

I'm really happy with the sound. Replaced the strings when I got it, but the setup was good even after international shipping. A comfortable guitar to use, a good sound for classic rock riffs with the tone all the way up. Plays really quick.

Quality of an epiphone

It is not a Gibson and you feel it, but it can compete with Epihone easily for half of the price. So if you are considering to by a LP style guitar and you don?t have money, this one is highly recommended, plus the headstock is much prettier than an Epiphone. The pickups are decent, if you want really do a mod consider to put on it Gibson original PAF.

Amazing guitar for the money

Words cannot describe how good this guitar is for the price you pay. I am coming from the old-school days of this budget getting you plywood with cheap glued-on ceramic pickups. On it's own, this guitar can easily rival Epiphones that cost two or three times as much. The guitar came with an extremely good setup, and the push-pull pots really give this guitar some versatility, which is unreal for the price point. The only bad thing I can say about this guitar is the pickups. The stock Roswells were just too muddy and I couldn't get a good sound out of any of my amps with them. This is understandable, when you make a budget instrument compromises have to be made. Luckily, a pickup change is dead simple and a set of GM Hot Rod pickups turned this guitar into one that rivals my Gibsons. With a pickup change, this guitar is easily a 10/10 and a downright insane value-for-money proposition. This is now my main gigging and practicing guitar. It is able to get great tones, it plays beautifully and I know that if something happens I can cheaply replace it. I would recommend this guitar to any guitarist, provided they change pickups.

A great LP guitar

This is a very good LP-style guitar, considering the low price. As usually for Harley Benton guitars, it needed a good setup as it did not play very well straight out of the box. This is easily done though. I changed the strings, fixed up the intonation, adjusted the truss rod, and applied GHS Fast Fret. The sound is smooth and creamy, and it feels really nice to play (after the setup). The only downside is that the tuners are a bit cheap. One of the ferrules has lifted from the tuner hole and some of the tuners are quite stiff. These are not major issues but do lower the quality rating. Otherwise, this is a great guitar for the money.

This guitar is mind blowing!

For 150euro u get a gibson guys! literally! lol been playing it for the last 3 months with my friends and u get this amazing tones and just awesome distortion sound of it! speechless:))) get this guitar for beginner/mid/ or even pro players!

This is the 2nd 450 puls we have bought. It is awesome.

This sounds better Than my 85 les paul. Bridge pickup has a nice fluty sound just like an older les paul.

Awsome guitar.

Sounds great, feels great,,, Im very satisfied.

A Begginer's Perspective

It's a pretty great guitar for a begginer even though Les Pauls in general are bit heavier than other guitars. Still increadibly beautiful though.

great guitar

dont be affraid of the low price,this is top of the line or low end gibson territory.i have been playing since 1972,and this instrument is outstanding for the price.all i did was polish the frets and get new strings and it plays better than the epiphone i had briefly and also the gibson sg i had too.no buzzing and the rosswell pup's are fine.i dont gig with it but im sure it would be up to the job.low end gibson cost £550....about the same as pro epiphone...this is better and quarter of the price or less.a no brainer.

Outstanding guitar.

I have bought numerous guitars in the past.

Eg.Fender,Gretsch,Ibanez,Tanglewood etc so I do have a direct comparison when I give my comments.

First as normal,the delivery was first class as usual and arrived well packaged.

I had recently returned a well known guitar because for the price of £400 plus I considered it lacked a few quality points that should be standard on a guitar in this price range.

Mainly the fretboard edges were so badly finished that they caught my fingers as I played and obviously the quality control guy must have been blind when he signed it of.

Back to this guitar.

All I can say is at this price point this guitar can compete with guitars four times the price with no problem.

Straight out of the box it needed no adjustement whatsoever,only needing to stretch the strings.

The action was perfect and for a change even the strings were very good.

The quality of the fit and finish are outstanding.

The neck is very easy to play.(The fretboard needed a little fine sanding and oiling as all new guitars do)

The body looks gorgeous and even the switches felt really nice quality.

The actual finish on the body is just stunning and as good as any guitar I've bought no matter what the price.

Harley Benton have really upped their quality with this guitar.

I have no hesitation recommending this to anyone wether you are a beginner or competent player.

This is just one beautiful guitar.

If one is available in Cherry I will be first in the queue.

Buy one and you won't regret it.

Keep playing,

Regards A.J.

Awesome vintage sound in these pickups!

It's hard to argue against this guitar for the price. I have two other LP's and it compares rather well. I am an avid at home musician with a nice collection. The build is quite good, it stays in tune, and the action was at a decent height out of the box (no fret buzz), the finish is beautiful and the sustain is absolutely incredible. Two big pros for me are the frets which are very smooth and I was very pleasantly surprised by the truly vintage sound of the pickups especially for the price range. With some simple amp settings I can get a pretty good Jimmy Page sound out of this guitar. My only con is the tuners, they work but they just look cheap and the color is off from the rest of the guitar. Overall: Very impressed, in fact much more than expected. If you're a beginner or just looking for an LP style: Buy one today! It's worth the money for sure!!!!

Another quality guitar

This is my 4th HB and is yet another quality product for very little money.

Pro's

Great price for what you get

Very good build quality

Great looking guitar

Push / Pull coil split function

Well set-up out of the box

Comfortable to play

Good quality strings for a 'budget' guitar

Good sounding pick-ups with lots of on-guitar tone adjustments available

Cons (These are minor)

Top is not quite as pretty as the photo, but still looks great.

Screw holding the pick guard gets very close to the guitar top. I was worried it may mark the top over time, especially if I choose to remove the pick guard to reveal more of the flamed top. I have sandwiched a piece of felt between the screw and the Body to resolve this.

The tuning keys are a little greener than the pictures. I would prefer them a little less green, but I'm sure I can live with it.

All in all, a great guitar especially for the price. Would highly recommend.

wow

I love this guitar,

I slapped a bigsby on it and changed the strings.

No fret buzz, nice lowish action. warm cleans, sharp dis.

good chucky neck.

the finish is lovely, nice thick vintage looking clear coat

Satisfying sound great features

I really love the Roswell pickups with the coil splitting function. They're very very versatile and I also like how playable the guitar is.

My only problem with this guitar is the quality control issues. It came with no damage while shipment, but the fretboard was chipped after 12th fret. I decided to keep it as it is for now.

Although I ordered new, not b-stock, there was no plastic on the pickup covers or any other places where there usually are.

I wasn't lucky with the wood esthetic too. It looks ugly.

All in all I do like to play this guitar and recommend it. I wish it was more handsome and the fretboard wasn't chipped that's all.

Amazing guitar

I read many reviews before buying this guitar and even already expecting to get something good I might say I was very surprised when it arrived. The overall quality is unbeatable for its price. Unfortunely I got mine with some small dents and I had to send it back but I think it was bad luck. It's a very good guitar and for this price it is just unbeatable.

After a few month of use this guitar, I can tell that this guitar is very good fo this price. It's sound very good for jazz, funk, blues or rock styles. I compared the sound of this guitar with Gibson Les Paul Studio and with Fender Stratocaster and can feel a character of both in HB. The HB SC-450Plus has tone like Les Paul, but sound not so nasal and vintage like Gibson (feel mor sharp sound of pickups with magnets type Alnico 5) but if you use Push/Pull function to Coil-Split you can feel the glass and crystal character of single coil pickups as like in Fender. The sound more universal for different syles of music, very good for cover bands who play in different styles of music. The sustain of this guitar is very long because it has tune o matic bridge with out any springs e.t.c.

The quality of assembly off this guitar is good even if neck assembled from diferent pie?ees of wood and color. The guitar tuning is stable. The design of neck and body more ergonomic for users .

Of minuses: the body of guitar not balanced, Tt's mean that when you sit and put guitar on right leg, you feel that it want to go down.

I bought the product just because I was curious about how good a 166¤ guitar can be. Back when I started playing, all guitars under 500 were really crappy. I really wanted a Les Paul type guitar so after no further thinking I made my decision and hit the BUY button. Worst case scenario the guitar will be just decorating my wall. The instrument arrived fully protected in a double box packaging. After opening the box I was really socked about how good the guitar looked. The only complain is that the strings were a bit shitty and the frets neaded a little polishing treatment. The fretboard was a little dry so I almost immediately started changing the strings, polishing the frets and Lemon oiling the fretboard. Two hours later the guitar was ready for playing with new shinny strings (elixir) and a good set up. I plugged the guitar to my Audio Interface and all I can say is that all of my conserns went away. The tone was amazing, the sustain excellent, the action very comfortable the sound very pleasing and in short, it is a guitar that I enjoy playing. I still don't know how they can make such a nice and playable guitar for that price. I have never played a high end Gibson guitar, but after my Harley Benton Sc 450 Plus I don't really feel like I need to!

excellent

excellent guitar can not find a fault on it im not going to compare it to a Gibson but to me this is as good as one and for the price it is fantastic if you are a player like me its the guitar that counts not the name and you will not go wrong with harley benton guitars and tromann are the best place to buy them from as they dont sell crap just good guitars good company thanks

Simply gorgeous with very confortable back neck contour

Machne heads no properly seated to headstock surface.

wow

I'm a beginner and recently purchased a budget guitar and knew it was missing quality. I seen reviews of the guitar on the internet so I purchased one for myself. Let me tell you wow it is pure quality I love it and I highly recommend it to beginners and seasoned guitarist you will love it too.