Harley Benton SC-450PlusLH HB Vintage Series Reviews

Nice guitar

Changed tuners... perfect after that

Beautiful Guitar, excellent for the price

As my first Les Paul-style guitar, I must say this is a winner. Only one fret is a bit rough, the pickup selector is a bit fragile and I'm always worried it might break during transport in a gig bag (I have taped the piece of styrofoam that came in the box all over so it wouldn't disintegrate and keep it in the bag to protect this piece during transport), also the numbers on the knobs seem to be backwards - could it be because it's a left-handed guitar and the factory didn't think of this?

Other than that, everything is great. Good intonation from factory, playable out of the box, I changed the strings to some better ones and it shines. Great fot jazz, rock n roll, blues, funk and that ragged Les Paul sound. I like the pickups though would probably upgrade them if I were to perform regularly with it.

What a beast! And a cheap one!

Lord! This is a awesome guitar. So cheap for what is delivered. Fret work is outstanding. Flawless and beautiful paint job. Sound almost like a 2000€ Gibson. Bet an untrained ear cannot identify the difference. Pickups sound nice.

cons: The tunners, at first hear, sound like having just open/close positions but, if you move then gently, you are going to find a thin range in the middle where it actually works. Not a big issue for me. You can change the potentiometers if you like... And come on... look at its price!

Conclusion:

Buy it! Now!

Rusty strings

Received in 4 days only a beginner but found this guitar easy to play. The only down side it came with rusty strings.

Nice guitar

Nice action good colour my number 1

Unbelievable

I can’t understand how they can sell / retail this guitar for this amount I have bought a epiphone less Paul pro and I can honestly say that this Harley Benton is a better Guitar in sound and playability (I have now ordered more guitars from them) if you are thinking of buying a new guitar the Harley Bentons or brilliant don’t think that they are inferior in any way just buy one and see

As good as any top snob guitar

What a brilliantly made guitar,solid great pickups..get one while you can

i got this for my son he is studying music

i must admit i was very supprised at the quality of this guitar

it looks fantastic and is punching way above its weight in sound looks and build quality after oiling the fret board that was dry and a set of good strings he is so happy with it and wont put it down

excellent value for money

I'm only a beginner, but this guitar has a very good action, is very playable, has a terrific sound and looks like it is really well put together. Very good value

Harley Benton SC450 lefty

I've always fancied a Les Paul but being a lefty my options were generally too expensive for me. After seeing (mainly) good reviews on HB guitars online I decided to take the plunge. I wasn't too thrilled to see that the colour options for left handlers was limited (I wanted Black or Tobacco Sunburst) but not put off enough to want to pay an extra £200 to get the colour I wanted from another brand. I was anxious as to whether I'd get a good one or one that needed a little bit of work which would have to be paid for. However, the guitar is better than I expected. I checked it over for flaws on arrival, the only thing I could really spot was a slightly darker area in the mahogany on the upper edge probably caused by the edge of a knot in the wood. You may not get this on a higher priced guitar but it doesn't bother me anyway. The guitar arrived well set up and only needed minor tweaks before playing. The stop bar was set right down close to the body, which is a common mistake with this type of guitar (of any make), it puts too much pressure down onto the bridge and increases string tension, easy to adjust with a 50p coin. It sound great, plays really well and I'm even getting used to the colour. An added bonus are the coil taps for the pickups, brilliant! The tone controls have a nice progression, rather than the on/off you sometimes get. The string height is pretty good, certainly not high, but I'd like to try it lower. On any guitar this might mean getting the frets levelled but I'm willing to get this done as I like the guitar so much. There was some slightly scratchy frets but this and the fingerboard are polishing out through use, it wasn't bad enough to warrant polishing although I might do that anyway. The only negative is that the control cavity wasn't cut quite deep enough which means that the lower tone and volume controls sit too close to the body. This is mainly a problem when using the coil tap on the bridge pickup and you have to hook a nail underneath the knob. They tried to mitigate this at the factory by not fitting a washer to the tone potentiometer. Longer shaft pots would be an easy fix, but the switched volume might not be that cheap. I'm willing to do these small jobs as overall the guitar is far, far better than you should expect for the money and basically it's a keeper. My other option was a Vintage V100 as I'm very impressed with the Strat copy I have from that make and I tried one out in the shop and liked it, but it was a bit out of my budget, however, the HB does not give much away in terms of playability and sound. Obviously the hardware might not be as good or long lasting so stuff like tuners might need replacing sooner, but they all work absolutely fine at the moment. I don't think it's unreasonable to allow for or expect these minor upgrades on such a low priced instrument and the rest of what your getting is way beyond expectations. This is a low priced instrument as apposed to "cheap", there's nothing cheap about how it plays, sounds or feels. Whether it sounds exactly like a £1400 Les Paul I don't know, but it would be unreasonable to expect this, what it does sound like is a very nice double humbucker guitar. I was expecting it to be heavier than it is from general comments you see about Les Paul's and although this is heavier than my other guitars it's not by that much and its definitely not overly heavy for the size and style. BTW: I'm not a gigging or professional musician but I have played a while (decades) and have had a number of guitars go through my hands so my comments are based on this experience. I made up my mind to try an HB after coming across John Robson's blog while looking for guitar lessons and then following up with his reviews on you tube. John gives a good unbiased account from a professional perspective and has experience of high end guitars. Cheers John!

Yo get a lot of guitar for what you pay.

I've always been interested in trying a LP style guitar but didn't want to spend a lot of money on it. After checking many reviews of affordable guitars the Harley Benton SC-450 seemed like the best choice and decided to try it.

I have to say that I was impressed of the guitar I got for the price it has. The finish is impeccable, the sound is definitely a LP sound, it has great sustain (never expected such sustain for an affordable guitar) and I can say that I'm enjoying playing it very much .

The only but I see is the fingerboard that you can tell is not the best, but still it has a good feeling (but maybe is also that I'm more a maple neck guy).

In all I can say that is an amazing guitar for either those who are looking for a guitar to start playing or, like in my case, the ones that want to try a new sound without busting the bank.

My firsst LP style guitar

For the price it's a great guitar! The roswell humbuckers give a nice vintage growl. I think this guitar is very well suited for blues, rock, and hard rock. Maybe not so much for new metal and low tunings.

I bought this guitar expecting to do a lot of mods, but after a few weeks playing it isn't necessary. I got some tuning problems, which was fixed with some graphite. The DLX tuners aren't very good and will change them. Will also look and the shielding and wiring because there is a bit of hum. The look and feel of the guitar is excellent. It adjusted trusrod and string hight. Frets are good. I find the neck pickup a bit muddy, but a new cap or different pu in time will make it better.

I use this guitar for practice. The guitar is awesome perfect weight ratio, i play it throw a Blackstar ID20 it sounds incredible. I gladly recomend it, i have no cons for it price/quality raport is at its best.

The only thing that ,maybe, if you really want it, is to put on a new set of strings. But i don't see that as a cons of it.

Excellent LP Style guitar

I was very impressed with the overall quality of this guitar, the finish is superb and the quality of the wood and paint is very high quality.

The pickups are more than adequate for gig use and the tone of this guitar is super on all amps I own. As with all LP style guitars they do have their issues, it is quite a heavy guitar and the tuning needs to be looked at quite often. It sounds absolutely incredible though, far beyond what it costs!!

As a left hander I am delighted with this guitar!!!

Great value guitar

Surprised at the quality of this guitar. Plays well and sounds great out of the box. I did remove the pickguard which was awful plastic and guitar looks much better now. Thoroughly recommend for the price.

I Don't Know How They Do It For The Price.

After placing the order to New York State it took 14 days to arrive including one holiday with no mail. Box was not damaged in any way. All items were packed very well. The SC450 Plus was absolutely beautiful. There were a couple of slight imperfections but nothing to think twice about. The tuning knobs were a little nicked up That was my biggest issue. That being said remember its a $150.00 guitar. It looks and plays like it should cost 3 times more than it did. Out of the box it was almost in tune. Set up was just fine I had to do nothing but tune it. String height was fine intonation was spot on and it stays in tune. It more than fulfilled my expectations..

Amazing Guitar

This guitar is amazing. I can't believe how good it is for the price. The quality is top class. Being a left-handed guitarist I am so happy that I could purchase this guitar. I can highly recommend this guitar.

Really rough fret ends

I am a fan of HB guitars. I own a bunch of them and find them to be of great quality at amazing prices. This one somehow slipped through the quality control system and was shipped to me with terribly rough fret ends. The neck binding was not what I am used to from HB. The guitar sounds terrific and plays well, save for those jagged fret ends. I've had them repaired and am pleased as can be with the guitar now. Top is really nice for a value priced guitar. The new neck heel design is awesome as well. I can really jam way high up on the neck with ease. Were it not for the rough frets, this would have been a 4 1/2 star guitar.