Harley Benton SC-DLX Gotoh Black Reviews

Could have been a 5-star, but QC issues ruined that

I bought this after receiving an impeccable Fusion T-style guitar from Harley Benton with a pristine roasted maple neck and stainless steel frets. A guitar that performs way above its price range. That instrument blew me away.

Unfortunately this one has a serious fatal flaw. Let’s start with what is good. Playability. Sound of the Tesla pickups. Hardware. Fretboard. All very good. Finish. Binding. Light weight. All spot on. It’s a heck of a guitar. There are so many good things about this model.

The jack is mediocre, and I have the same feedback for all 3 of the Harley Bentons that I own.

So what could possibly be bad? Quality Control!! The tuners were installed at seemingly random angles. They aren’t even close, with one being 15-20 degrees off. How did this guitar pass QC? It was setup so beautifully. Someone paid attention to the setup, but decided to ship this out anyway. What a shame. And to be clear, nothing happened in shipping. The guitar was built and shipped out this way.

Returns from the US are effectively impossible given shipping prices and the Customs requirements to return internationally. I knew this going in and took a gamble. Customer service did what they could. They were professional and responsive, and returned a small bit of the purchase price.

Buying in Europe? 100% go for it. You can return it if you get a lousy one. I’m sure there are great specimens of this guitar. I have no doubt.

Buying in the US? Beware. This is not a super cheap model, and you could be out a decent sum of money. I cannot recommend it.

Amazing guitar!

I bought the Harley Benton DLX SC Gotoh Black due to how good the hardware was and how the guitar just caught my eye. I instantly knew I had to get it.

The hardware is brilliant in my opinion. I tuned my guitar on Saturday and on Tuesday it was still in tune despite me taking it to work and back. My friends all approved of it and stated just how well it was built and how it looked. The Gotoh tuners definitely do the job.

The neck is just brilliant. As soon as you wrap your hand around it, it is evident that it is a very ergonomic neck.

The sound is very good. I have seen videos on youtube that claimed that they are not the loudest, however from my own experience they are fine and loud enough. The pickups are very versatile and can play anything from Blues to various forms of Metal such as thrash, black and even Death Metal, (reminds me of Obituary in tone).

The stainless steel frets are really good and was really well filed on the sides. I was also very happy that the guitar arrived with a low action and required no adjustments anywhere. I highly recommend this guitar and the brand, for anyone who is cost conscious. For the price I paid, being £289, I believe the guitar is definitely great value. Personally I prefer my Harley Benton over my Ibanez RG 721fm Premium.

I will definitely buy another Harley Benton in due time.

A wonderful mix of classic and modern.

I bought this guitar as my second ever single-cut. I have an 8-string single-cut but it's difficult to make a comparison based on that. Personally, I felt this guitar met my most important quality which is "ergonomics." Essentially, if the guitar doesn't feel good, I'm not going to want to play it. The neck and fretboard feel great and the body isn't too heavy. The sound is decent but there's plenty of room to put pickups of your choice in there. Even without after-market pickups, the guitar still does great with distortion and clean tones. Overall, for the specs, this guitar is difficult to beat and I will be buying more from Harley Benton going forward.

One absolute beast

This is an absolute beast of guitar.

It´s really well done, in every single way you can imagine. The finish, the hardware, the pickups, the feel... I can´t find much flaws no matter where I look.

If you want a Single Cut guitar, modern, Eclipse alike but in an indredible tight budget, don´t look further. This is the best choice you´ll can find anywere.

Amazing value!

This guitar looks cool, plays great and sound even better!

Speechless

Ive had this guitar for sbout 4 months. And the experience has been outstanding. The frets are perfect and the neck is incredible. It plays better and stays in tune better than a 4k gibson les paul. I literaly pick this up more than the gibson just for the playability. However, its not as lush as a gibson. The pots are only 250k. I changed them out to 500k pots and kept the original PU. they're sort of vintage sounding with slightly higher output. The gotoh hardware allows the guitar to stay in tune even in drop C. This one's worth every penny

This guitar is not worth the money

Unfortunately instrument that is impossible to play. The height of the strings above the first fret is 1.5 mm, above the twelfth fret is 3,5 mm. Frets have different heights and mechanical damage. When you bend, the string gets stuck in the groove. Tesla pickups are disgusting. A muffled and unreadable sound that makes almost no difference in any switch position.

It will have to be carried to the workshop.

Single cut with high quality hardware and modern updates

You can tell the difference with the gotoh hardware immediately when you play this guitar. Tuning is smooth and precise. The weight reduction and the belly cut make the guitar much more comfortable. The coil split function gives you some extra tonal variety, which is welcome. I have another single cut that is 4x the price, and this guitar gets reached for just as often.

I would have liked to see some of the same color options as we have in the SC-550II, and an option for standard colored hardware.

Great sound and look

I did not expect that my second electric guitar can be so much better than my first Squier Bullet Stratocaster HT HSS BL which cost just usd 50 less in Russia. Now i know what it is not to have that noise with even expensive Cordial cable. For me as a beginner this guitar sounds wonderful, look wonderful, and built good. The only small drawback is that the controls and the selector switch are not all tight enough. But its just nothing serious and i can be easily adapted if you are a perfectionist. I truly recommend it this guitar and of course, as a rookie, i also can recommend it to my fellow-newcomers.

Cracked dot (trapetion)

Great guitar, but guitar came with cracked dot (trapetion in this case)