Harley Benton SC-550 II FTF Reviews

Incredible guitar with warm and beautiful tone

I bought this guitar based on the amazing reviews I read online. It didn't disappoint. I had been looking for a Les Paul for a while and this guitar for this price is just a bargain. Incredibly happy

Amazing guitar

I bought this guitar after reading all the review and watching the youTube videos on it. They don't do it justice. First off, I got the guitar within days of ordering all the way to US. The only thing I didn't care for was the tuners, which I replaced with locking tuners ( messed up part of the headstock doing so since the holes needed to be enlarged... made me sick). I have looked at ordering another just to replace this one I damaged.. I would so totally buy another just because.. no reason other than the great quality they put into making and setting this guitar up.

Speachless

I love the sound of its clean fat humbucker sound.

Some damage to neck and a dodgy selector switch

I bought this mainly based on price, it seemed like good value. However a couple of weeks in the pick-up selector switch only works in 2 if the 3 positions and the neck seems to have some damage that only becomes apparent in bright light. The need to start looking at getting these issues sorted negates that good value sadly which is a shame as its otherwise a lovely looking guitar. Perhaps I got B stock by mistake

Just WOW!

Looks great, sounds great, setup perfectly right out of the box. Other than tuning I haven't touched a thing.

Awesome feature set at an amazing price. The weight relief chamber makes it a bit lighter than other LP style guitars but still very prominent. Like most other LP's one thing you won't get is neck dive. The Tesla pickups are very bright and lively. Lovely clean tones and has no problems getting down and dirty when you dial in some gain and distortion.

If you're looking for a nice LP style guitar you'll be very hard pressed to find a better value proposition. Just an overall terrific guitar.

The new improved SC-550

A great looking, playing and sounding guitar. Very little to fault.

Will change tuners eventually, otherwise an absolute keeper

A beautiful guitar!

This is my first LP style guitar I own, so my expectations were based only on what I have seen in guitar shops and on YouTube videos.

I must say this guitar has a very nice finishing, I love how it looks and how it sounds.

It came with no scratches, no specs, no smudges, QC done pretty well. :)

The fretwork is very well done as well, with no sharp edges, the frets are polished nicely and the fretboard and neck feel great when playing.

The tuners work pretty well, they're smooth and feel like good quality, and they also keep the guitar in tune even with heavy string bending.

I would mention only a couple of details that are not so perfect as the rest of it. There is a some string buzz all over the fretboard, especially on lower strings, so this will necessitate a bridge and neck setup.

The screws used to fix the jack could have a flatter head and a couple of pots don't have a fixed turning axis, but tend to "wobble" a bit when turning.

Having in mind the attractive price of this instrument, overall it is much more then I would have expected in terms of quality, esthetics and sound, so I would definitely recommend it as a quite accessible, but nevertheless very beautiful LP style guitar.

Harley Benton SC-550 II FTF

Wow, beautiful guitar. Plug it in and it gets better!

Super

I love this guitar! The quality of sound and build is more than I expected from the guitar in this price range.

Good value but not without issues

For the price this is a good to very good guitar. However I found that the one I bought had issues. String height is set very high even for me and I like to get my fingers under the strings to make bends. It's pretty much at the top of the bridge saddle pegs. I tried to lower this action but then found out I was getting a lot of fret buzz which was unplayable. So I am left with a pretty slow neck all in all. This is slightly frustrating as I was expecting better.

However you can't argue with the finish and the hardware nor the sound. These are all very good. The guitar is heavy and well made. It is a very heavy guitar coming from a background in strat style guitars. Unfortunately I probably won't use it as much as I would have liked because of the string height issues. Neck relief did nothing to help in the matter and neither did going for a straighter neck which only made fret buzz worse.

Edited review to give it more stars because the pickups are excellent.

More quality less money

pros: great pick ups, real les paul soun

great frets, no shar ends etc

great bindings and finish

stays in tune

cons:

My little complain is about tuners colour,

Under the hood and beyond

After watching all the You Tube videos on this guitar, including a so called "deep review" I found that not one went "under the hood" (or bonnet for you Brits) Sure it looks great but what is inside. First I'll start with the 3 way switch. This is a CTS style 3 way switch. It works as it should with no loose movements. The cavity is paint shielded. The cover has a metallic tape shield. Next for the pots. They are full size made in Korea Alpha pots. The cavity is also paint shielded. The wiring and solder are very neat. The cavity is clean of any debris. The cover is also shielded as mentioned above.

Next I go to the look of the guitar, as this is the first thing that you see. It looks great the AAAA flamed maple top has a quality look, although, I can't see what the difference is between AAA and AAAA except perhaps marketing. There were no imperfections found anywhere on the guitar.

The guitar itself comes in just over 9 lbs. (over 4 kg.) The guitar is listed as having weight relief, It is not light by any means but is right in the Les Paul weight catagory.

O.K. how does it sound. I love the Tesla pickups. I have guitars with Seymour Duncan pups and they are right up there with them. The pots roll off good for different flavor at different settings.

The neck feels great a true 60's profile, not a baseball bat 50's. The fretwork was perfect and setup was spot on. It's nice to know that I'll probably never have to re-fret the guitar as the frets are stainless steel.

The only thing that I changed were the tuners. They were perfectly adequate, but I prefer locking tuners for ease of string replacement.

All in all I like this much better than my Les Paul Studio, which I am now going to sell. If you want a quality sounding great looking guitar, you can't go wrong with this.

ABSOLUTELY OUTSTANDING GUITAR.

this guitar is superb without any visable imperfections what so ever the fit and finish is staggeringly good ,the electrics are good too and the sound is awesome ,the tesla pickups do a great job ,bridge pickup gives tthat powerful crunch/bite and switch to neck pickup and straight into guns n roses sweet child o mine sound and both are a great improvement from the roswell pickups that were used previously,the stainless steel frets are brilliant and superbly finished too,out of the box this guitar was set up with just a tuning up and then ready to play so thumbs up for set up,i did a slight adjustment to truss rod in order to get a lower string action for my own preference and it plays like butter,people who pick or look for faults are just snobs as this guitar is worth 2 or 3 times more than it is ,its a seriously good guitar and a keeper for me,this guitar will hold its value and in a few years more people will know about harley benton guitars as there reputation is getting better and better,great guitars at an affordable prices that come with great set ups and a great company to buy from you cant go wrong.

Definitely a Flagship Model

I bought this guitar just to have an LP type/style in the collection for occasional use. I have yet to put this guitar down since it arrived. Out of the box it only required a bit of tuning. Intonation was spot on, the neck was perfectly straight & the build quality, set up and QC are top notch. Beautiful top, great feeling comfortable neck and good hardware/electronics made the introductory impressions pleasing. Even after seeing several positive reviews and recommendations I was still pleasantly surprised with this guitar overall. The Tesla pickups are quite versatile and provide great tone. The neck pickup does not have the ultra dark or muddy tones of many other neck pickups on guitars of this type. Both pickups are very dynamic and offer plenty good tones. The neck is very comfortable and a joy to play. The improved body shape and neck heel lend to great comfort, upper fret access and playability. Although I’ve heard a few complaints on the tuners, I find them quite serviceable and have had no issues with operation or with them holding tune. They are a bit odd visually but not absurdly so. Hardware and electronics on this guitar are impressive at this price point and exceeded my expectations based on other reviews. The only “flaw” I was able to find was the binding is less than perfect in some places but is minimal and hardly noticeable outside of close scrutiny.

My point of reference and comparison for this particular HB model are several Epiphone LP Plus, Tribute and Custom models as well as a few Gibson LP Studio models. The SC-550 II provides an experience and quality on-par with or better than those guitars in my experience.

This one has been immediately promoted from an occasional use stand-by/backup to having a spot in the main rotation for studio/session work and most likely in my live rig as well. The chambered weight relief makes this a very comfortable and useable live instrument for long gigs. I will definitely be recommending this guitar to my peers and students. This one along with my Harley Benton TE-70 BP (another phenomenal HB guitar) will soon get their public debut here on the stages around the Home of the Blues & Birthplace of Rock n Roll (Memphis, TN US)!

So I spent about a year chasing 2nd-hand Epiphone LP Standards looking for one that ticked the classic LP specs: Set neck, Hog body with Maple cap, 24.75" scale, single ply binding, trapezoid markers, burst finish, covered pick ups. I had a modest budget and reasonable idea of "good condition". It never happened.

I read the specs of this guitar in disbelief when you see the price. I watched the YT vids (John Robson persuaded me: placed the order.

PROS: What arrived is a wonderful guitar that exceeds my expectations and is a genuine, straight-up, full fat LP. It looks, sounds and breaks up under gain like an LP.

The finish is superb. The pups sound pretty good: powerful and clear - through my tube amp and the hardware - tuning machines, knobs and switch - feel like solid, quality items.

CONS: Well, nothing's perfect. The bridge and tailpiece are a bit rough and have little spurs of plastic and sharp metal corners. The nut has the funkiest cut I have ever seen; it actually defies physics and stays in tune. The G-string breaks at a crazy angle and only a few mm of string actually touch the nut. The filing on all strings are too shallow. Not good. It's also too narrow for the neck by a couple of mm.

However, these are cheap, simple fixes and part of living with an instrument; you find a luthier you trust and give him a few quid/euros/dollars to solve it.

You'd likely have to do the same with a _real_ LP costing 10x as much ...

Great guitar for the money

looks amazing and sounds great.

I can't believe the quality and value

This is my first Harley Benton guitar, and my first single cut. I've played mostly on a strat, but have been wanting that Les Paul humbucker sound. I played an actual LP years ago (don't remember the exact model), but it wasn't comfortable to play. THIS guitar is only slightly heavier than my strat and I can't believe how easy it is to play. I'm in love with the neck - I had no idea how awesome stainless steel frets would feel, especially when bending strings. The action and intonation were great right out of the box (I might make a slight adjustment to the intonation on one string, but it's minor). The only adjustment I did make was slightly lowering the right side of the bridge pickup - it was a little too hot on the high strings for my liking. The hardware seems pretty solid. I wasn't sure what the pickup switch would feel like, but it's pretty solid and no issues so far. I would have preferred more modern looking tuners like the SC - 550 plus, but that's an easy change if I even bother. I absolutely love this guitar and will probably only buy Harley Bentons going forward.