Harley Benton SC-550 II BCF 4-stars Reviews

To make it even better

Lovely guitar and excellent value for money but can be improved by sending out an instruction sheet so that the action can be setup to the player's requirements.

For example the method of setting the individual string height and adjustment of the tailpiece to advoid the strings rubbing and pivioting on the bridge and not the saddles.

A great guitar

This is a fantastic guitar that plays great and sounds great right out of the box. However...there are some issues.

I will first say that I am a huge Harley Benton fan and I own several HB guitars and I haven't been disappointed with the quality of any of the instruments I've previously purchased, but this particular guitar was slightly disappointing in two major ways:

1) The fretboard "bit" me the first time I played it and - while moving my hand along the fretboard - a piece of plastic near the second fret sliced my hand and I got a sliver a fretboard binding stuck in my finger. After cleaning up the blood and pulling the sliver out of my hand, I was all good. But I didn't "trust" the guitar to play it again until I did some proper fretwork on the neck. Perhaps I got a bad one in the batch?

2) The colour of this instrument is closer to a darker "candy apple red" and not the brighter shade of red seen in the product photos. Don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful guitar, but if you were expecting the guitar to look EXACTLY like the website photos you'll be disappointed.

All in all, it's a great guitar.

The Tesla pickups and stainless frets are welcome additions to the the formula I was already quite happy with on the Gen I. The frets required little to no work and they feel great. The new flame tops are HOT.

I think the description of the nut as "graphite" is in error. It was also badly cut and will probably need changing before I'm happy with it.

Pros:

Beautiful

Great fret work

New pickups are fantastic

Cons:

Badly cut nut

Nut material not as advertised