Harley Benton SC-550 Plus EMG FTF Reviews

VFM

So beautiful beautiful guitar!!! Perfect sound , emg got unbelievable sound. Fretboard smooth , action could be set a little lower but it’s ok . The only problem is that one of the knobs was clicking and move it must restore but it is not something difficult or expensive.

Fantastic Guitar

Such a sweet guitar. EMG pickups are awesome. Can not beat the value of this guitar.

Electronic Problems

Good sound, nice guitar.

Problem with the pickup switch. Sometimes it works, most time's it does not.

Volume and Tone Knobs/Potentiometers also somewhat dodgy.

Absolute beast for a very cheap price!

I have to say, i saw the reviews and knew that it was a good guitar, but it really is amazing for such a low price! Feels and plays like a guitar in the 1000 euro range. That being said the cons are the following:

EMG's are good but not amazing, I find them eclipsed when I compare them to my other guitar with Duncan distortions

The nut was hardly cut at all, took it to a luthier a day after getting it to properly cut the nut so the strings can stay and place and hold tune.

And they guitar has 4-5 finish problems, the binding is inconsistent in a few places, and the headstock has a blemish where to nut meets the headstock.

That being said, the drawbacks in MY particular model aren't nearly enough for me to return it as a B stock, or not enjoy the sound or playability of the isntrument!

Highly recommend this if you dont wanna shell out 1300eur for a Les Paul Tribute!

Just. Wow.

I want to give just a bit of context about myself before I go into reviewing this thing. I started playing guitar around the age of 10 and played pretty much daily until I went away to college, when I sold my Fender Strat, Les Paul, and Marshall half stack for beer money. I haven' t played much in the 20 plus years since until about 2 months ago after having major knee surgery. I play anything from blues to metal and am a Les Paul guy through and through. I bought this model along with a PRS replica and have now played both considerably.

If we are doing an apples to apples comparison on a Gibson Les Paul Standard, this thing is 95% of the instrument for 10% of the cost. The craftmanship is SICK good. I am so far beyond floored that this thing costs $350. The tone is 99% of a real deal LP; to the point that it produces the famous Les Paul tones almost perfectly. Whether it be the rich, velvety robust clean blues tone of the neck pickup, or the bold, crunchy, aggressive rock/metal tone of the bridge pickup....I'm floored.

Is it a perfect replica? NO. I have found 3 main differences between this and the real thing. First off, the neck is a bit thicker than I would like and am used to from Gibson. Second, the volume and tone nobs feel cheap. Last, and most importanly, this thing is significantly lighter than the real deal. In fact, I'd say it's too light and that is the only thing I can truly find wrong about this. But at $350, who gives a rip? When I play it standing up the head tends towards even to slightly below the body. In a real deal LP, the body is so heavy that it naturally sits perfectly below the head.

When I compare this to the CST-24T (that was $100 less) that I purchased along with this model, this one wins hands down. I'm likely going to have to put as much money into that model as I did purchasing it in order to get the full potential of that instrument. This one is completely maxed out straight out of the box and I won't have to spend another penny on it.

In terms of any issues that I've had; I am not a luthier but I did a full setup on it. There is some very slight buzz once the setup was done, but it doesn't come through on an amp. I probably broke 7 strings (high E and B) stretching them when I first put a new set of strings on, but once I took a round filer to the tuners, this problem went away.

Overall, I'm floored with this. I can't give recommend this guitar enough.

A Fkin nice guitar.

Can't go wrong for the money. I'm blown away by the quality and sound. Maybe decent guitars don't need to be expensive these days?

Great guitar, bad delivery experience.

First of all, let me say, this is a great guitar! The neck is perfect, set-up good, finish nearly perfect and sound also top notch. I was a little let down by the quality of internal wiring- to be honest, the pots and switch were not soldered very well at all, but everything worked OK.

As there were a couple of other small issues with the guitar I had ordered, and a B-Stock model of the same type became available, I thought to order again. Big mistake! The B-Stock guitar arrived without the proper guitar packaging, and was unfortunately in a very bad state :( The neck was broken (really), one of the pickups was pushed in, and 3 of the strings snapped. And all that without any damaging to the box....

So, all in all, this is a good guitar, but I'm not sure I would recommend it for these unfortunate reasons. :(

Amazing

For the price os the best Les Paul tupe you came buy

Holy s**t

This guitar has exceeded my expectations by far. The quality build, the playability and incredible sound were better than everything I ever heard. I figured this was my entry into the LesPaul world, I need not go any further. This particular model is built at the factory in Indonesia, which I believe has a lot to do with why they are so good. This is the same factory known for making other great guitar's like Ibanez. I bought a fretless bass for my son that was really nice too but it was built in a different factory and you can see the quality level is not quite the same. But even still a nice bass especially for$150. Overall I would recommend HB to anyone especially the SC 550 plus

Guitar arrived and looked better and sounded great more than I had hoped amazing product and superb finish couldn't be more happy

I play this more than any other "authentic" brand LP that I have

Yes, you know what I'm talking about.. I have an "authentic" Lp ( it sickens me to even say the brand name anymore), A couple Epi LP's, and a couple HB Lp's. This specific LP or single cut plus is my favorite by far. The EMG retroactive Fat 55's sound so good, I bought a couple sets from EMG to put in other guitars. I absolutely love these pups. The guitar, listen for what you get, you can't beat it. Beautiful flamed maple top (veneer but so what) it looks amazing w/ binding, locking tuners and the 200.00 set of EMG pups. plus the hardware to go with it, that alone is like around 300.00 if you were going to upgrade any other guitar w/ this same hardware/electronics. And it's made at the Cort factory in Indonesia. If you're going to get an import that isn't Japanese, Cort in Indo is where you want to get it from. They make really great guitars for other "big" brands. The neck is a bit smaller than my 60's standard, It's very comfortable. I bought mine during the very first run of these last year. And it's still my go to single cut guitar.

Unbeatable quality for the price!

It's unbelievable how affordable this guitar is, the EMG active pickups sounds amazing and the overall physical quality of the guitar is great. The only problem I ran into was that the pickup selector switch wasn't installed properly. It was an easy fix, I just unscrewed it from the top, removed the plastic 'treble/rhythm' indicator and adjusted the switch and replaced the washer. Not a big problem given the value of the product.

This is a teriffic guitar

This is my second Harley Benton's guitar (the first one was SC-Custom VB and it was pretty "shitty") and what can I say, it's just amazing. The guitar definitely looks and feels like a guitar x2 or x3 more expensive. The pickups are simply magical - armor-piercing sound on the bridge and creamy in the neck. The finish also did not let me down - I could not find a single (!) defect.

Overall impression:

Pros:

+ EMG pickups are by far the guitar's strongest point - everything from creamy cleans to crushing higain tones is possible

+ The guitar is perfectly tuned from the factory

+ Potentiometers and switches looks solid

+ Easy to tune

+ Really looks and feels like 1000$ guitar

Cons:

- Frets would be nice to polish

Lives up to the good press!

Just received my SC-550+ EMG and it does not disappoint. The fit and finish compares well with my Custom 24-08 SE which cost twice as much. Only 4 stars on features due to lack of stainless steel frets, which is really a nit, and simply leaves room for improvement. Four days door to door from DE to USA was also outstanding.

Great guitar

Very nice guitar overall. Plays smooth and the EMG's sound pretty nice. Only wish it had stainless steel frets.

Fantastic single cut guitar

Great guitar. The active pickups have a nice sound to them and are great for both overdrive and clean tones. It came with a nice setup with nice rounded off fret ends (not sharp). The fretboard needed a cleaning but I have bought a few HB guitars and all of them need a fretboard cleaning and fret polish. I think the guitar looks great too!

I would not hesitate to recommend this guitar to anyone who wants a single cut at a great price.

Well, I wasn't expecting this...

This is a teriffic guitar in this price range and above.

I am a home user, so this guitar is even a overkill for my abilities - its quality puts to shame more expensive guitars.

It has a les paul sound, great active pickups.

Pros - everything

Cons - I am trying to find any, but I am failing at this time.

I have 4 Corts and this is my first HB guitar and I was concerned about the quality - well, I am playing it for ours and I still cannot believe what a bargain is this guitar...

I really, really didn't believe that such a quality instrument could exist for this kind of a price. I was hunting for a Les Paul for a long time and this guitar is killing 40% percent more expensive guitars (the ones that start with the letter "E") with specifications and execution. Traditional classic rock instrument, versatile and also never aging.

The finish is awesome and the setup was great! I couldn't believe that I don't have to take the guitar to a luthiere for a setup.

It has everything!