Harley Benton ST-20 CA Standard Series 5-stars Reviews

Great for begginer and even more

Killer in this price range, even holding tuning for some time.

But there is some cons about this guitar:

-Easy to unscrew input jack

-Not so good pickups

-Short frets

My third Harley Benton.

This was the cheapest Harley Benton I have bought to date, but it still didn't dissapoint! It was breathtaking right out of the box, a stunning shade of Candy Apple Red. I did have to dress a few fret ends, but that was it, and it plays beautifully now. Just great for learning how to set up a Guitar, now I'm comfortable doing that on any guitar, I mean... for £75, it's a steal!

Stunning guitar

Harley Benton keeps amazing me! I was a little skeptic when I bought this guitar for 89 euros. I didn’t think it would be much but I wanted to play around with a guitar that has single coil pick ups so I thought what the hell… I absolutely love it! Didn’t need any adjustments whatsoever. Tune and go! Worth every single euro!

Very good for beginners.

Die ideale Gitarre für Einsteiger

Meine erste E-Gitarre. Klingt super für das Geld. Eine sehr gute Qualität. Hervorragende Verpackung und Lieferzeit nach Kasachstan.

who needs a fender

a few tweaks and it is as good as a fender at a fraction of the price

Possibly the best budget strat on the market

To start, a little back story. I've been playing guitar for about 1 year on an acoustic (Yamaha FG800M) and since the beginning, I have been really interested in getting into electric. I was doubting for a while whether I should shell out the extra cash for a Squier Classic Vibe 60s Strat, or if a cheaper alternative was gonna do it. I chose the latter option because I am not huge on cash and was willing to take a gamble quality-wise. I'm saying that because from reviews, the quality has shown to be mixed.

Now as this arrived at my door, I was pleasantly surprised right out of the gate. The guitar simply looks incredible, especially for the price. However, I did notice some problems with the cutting of the pickguard around the hole for the pickup selector switch, but that's just a minor cosmetic issue. The fret ends felt quite nice, none of them were poking out, but a tiny bit on the sharper side, that's an easy fix though. Also, I noticed that the action was a little bit high for my liking (kind of an SRV style action), but thanks to the included tools that was a really easy fix. The intonation was practically dead on, I only had to do a couple of small adjustments. And the truss rod was a little bit too tight, meaning that the neck didn't have enough relief in it, but again, a really easy thing to fix with the included tools.

I will say though that the tremolo system outright sucks, so if you're someone who uses a trem or would like to use one, this is not the guitar for you. It gets out of tune really fast, even with a lubed nut, and the springs on the back are really overtightened to the point that it's hard to loosen them with an ordinary screwdriver. Also speaking of the springs, the screws for the spring claw were screwed in at a really weird angle and I could not figure out what could've gone wrong there. With that all said though, I don't really care about the tremolo system, so for me, that doesn't knock down anything really.

Going to the sound, I found the low-end response to be a bit weird, it got really muddy really fast. That could be fixed though by lowering the side closer to you of the pickups, and when I did that, the guitar started sounding much better already. The pickups sound a bit weird and I can't put my finger on what specifically throws me off about these, but being a 4th position lover, this strat's 4th position doesn't sound like the 4th position I'm used to. Same with the 2nd position too, the in-betweens seem a bit weird. But for the price, I'm pretty sure these are not better than what Squier is putting in their Affinity series, so for 88€ at the time of writing, this thing sounds killer!

All in all, even though I'm knocking a star for each of the subcategories, I've chosen to give this guitar a 5-star overall rating, because for such a low price it can not be beaten. For guys just starting out, I highly recommend it, just beware that the quality on yours might not be as good as it was on mine.

Edit: I'm now into the 6th month of owning this guitar, and some additional issues have cropped up. For one, the switch tip is extremely loose and comes off extremely easily. I was thinking of gluing it on, but since I'm also considering replacing the pickguard on this guy with a pearloid one, this isn't an option. Also as the humidity has decreased significantly due to the winter, the guitar now shows pretty significant fret sprouting. This isn't strictly a Harley Benton issue, as this is the case with most guitars, especially budget ones. Aside from those flaws though, I'm really darn impressed and have gigged around with this guitar with nothing but compliments on its look and sound!

Not Bad At All!

When this arrived I was shocked, first of all it looks really nice,, Great paint job candy apple red ,you can’t go wrong,, all I’ve done was tune it up ,the neck feels great no Burs and I didn’t even have to adjust truss rod or Intonation everything was spot on,, for cheap guitar this thing is awesome, Not bad at All!

SUPER BUDGED GUITAR

I wanted to have an electric guitar for general use. Quality and color(red) is fantastic and sure i could not find any difference comparing it with a pro guitar as i am not a pro guitarist. I have a VAMP ii and it gives me a big variety of cabinet simulations. Sounds good and warm with those funky riffs i play... also good for drive(rock, hard rock etc)

the real deal

the guitar is simply stunning in the CA finish. After a quick tuning out of the box intonation was spot on, but I will probably lower the string height a bit. Guitar is quite a bit heavier(good thing) than I anticipated. For the price the pick ups sound very good through a tube amp. Could it use an upgrade on the tuners and a bigger trem block, hell yes.....but for the price you can afford to upgrade it and have an incredible guitar for under $200. I honestly don't believe one can find a better guitar for the money.

Nice guitar for the price. Well, what can I say except that for the money, you can't get any guitar better than this. I also bought a ST-62 BK but I have this guitar set up and playing already while I'm still working on the ST-62. Never expected that. I bought this guitar to mod but after setting it up I play it all the time. You have a winner here. PROS: Very Good Finish, Pickups are good for a budget guitar, Machine Heads are good as long the guitar is used as a hardtail , weight is ok. CONS: Frets are too low, Fretboard feels kind of light in my hands, but that's expected for the price.

Very Nice!!

The guitar looks better than the pictures, sounds good, set up nicely. Better than I expected for the price of this guitar!

Great Guitar

Best price to quality rate there is.

The cut-out in the body allows you to really do anything you want with it.

I just love it!!!

Great tone for great price

For a cheap guitar likes this, it is very well built and feels really good to play. Some minor ajudstments can make a huge diference. When it comes to quality, no issues here. Harley Benton does it again.

Excellent quality for the price

At this price, this guitar is a real bargain. The finish is great, no protruding edges from the frets, fretboard is smooth and comfortable, the paint job looks awesome and the sound is significantly better than what I expected to come out of it. Easily better than other other Strat copies that are double the price.

Definitely go for this if you want to try out a Strat.

Amazing guitar

So this is my first electric guitar.

I have played a bit of 3/4 classical and an acoustic for my first 8 months, and decided to venture into the world of electric guitar.

This guitar looked liked a pretty decent bang for the buck guitar.

I was afraid if I buy something cheap its playability might keep me off the guitar.

Youtube and General reviews were positive so I was optimistic it would be a good one.

However I was still prepared and even being a novice, I looked up videos for guitar adjustment, sanding frets, adjusting trustrod etc.

When I got the guitar, it was as good as the reviews described it.

Playable out of the box.

There was a slight buzing on the low E string if plucked in some ways, but that was it.

I did not know, but a cable was included for amp. (its not written in the description)

I dont find much changing when I change tone knobs but that might be just me.

For a beginner like me this guitar is very perfect.

I would recommend getting this.

Beautiful!

What a beautiful guitar!!! This is my first guitar and I am happy with my choice. I?m a rookie on guitars, but what I can feel is a solid piece of instrument, with a decent weight and nice sound when I plugged to my amp.