Harley Benton ST-20HSS SBK Standard Series 5-stars Reviews

Excellent value

+ low price

+ solid construction

+ looks cool

+ HSS pickups provide versatility

- tuners feel not so great

- minor tinkering with the neck may be necessary

I bought this as my first electric guitar to teach myself how to play. Guitar was shipped as soon as it was in stock (which matched the timeline provided) and it was packaged properly to protect it form damage.

The guitar feels well made with solid construction. I had a tiny bit of a glue spill where fingerboard attaches to the neck, but carefully cleaning it up myself was no big deal and took seconds to fix. I had no sharp fret ends, but it didn't look like they were rounded at the factory, so it may differ guitar from guitar. I really, really like the matte black finish with black hardware, it looks even better in person than in pictures. Matte black is a bit of a fingerprint magnet though. It was set up pretty well and after a quick tune I was ready to play. Pickups sound nice to my ears and I had no issues with them. I don't really like how the tuners feel, some of them feel much harder to turn than the others, I will probably swap them out at some point.

Overall the guitar is an outstanding value proposition.

A triumph from Harley Benton!

I can't believe how nice this guitar is! For the price it's stunning - the matte black is so classy (IMHO) and the neck being the same colour... well, it's a thing of beauty. The only thing that I would have changed looks wise is a more red pickguard (it's more brown).

Two fret ends needed the slightest of gentle rubbing with a fret file at the fret end. 10 mins of gentle persuasion and it's perfect now. Otherwise the neck is straight and the frets are fine.

It's heavy. Perhaps I should say substantial? It plays really nicely but even if I couldn't play it I'd buy it again to hang on the wall - it's that lovely looking :-). In fact, it's so nice I've bought 4 more Harleys since!

Great stuff

Coming back to play electric after some time;

very good in hands, very good production, fantastic strings given;

looks suberb!

decent sound, needs mini adjustments;

ready to play or to upgrade;

5/5 in its price range!

Best guitar for the price !

I have been using this guitar for 2 months. No complaints. The frets did not come out, the neck did not twist. In general, the guitar leaves the best impressions both from playing it and from the sound. The guitar has almost no downsides. A small minus is the rather mediocre tuning pegs and unpolished frets. But after a couple of hours of playing guitar the frets are already normal. At the moment, I set the distance of strings from 12 frets to 1 mm. Even doing two-tone bends there is no buz buz. True, to achieve this, it was necessary to grind frets 21 and 22. The appearance of the guitar is generally amazing. I used to have a Squier Bullet and I remember how long it took to tidy it up. This Harley Benton is definitely much better.

Very high-quality and inexpensive guitar!

Hello everyone! I bought this guitar in July 2020. This is my first guitar and it's really cool! It looks fantastic! Black matte color combined with red! The build is very high quality! The sound is great! A friend came by recently and I let him play my guitar. He was very surprised that for such money I bought such a high quality guitar! If you are a novice musician take this guitar without even thinking!!! All the best and good music!!!

best guitar for its price

Great value and good-looking guitar

Good looking guitar, better sound and bridge pickup than the squier strat I used to have. I bought this as a slide guitar and it does the job perfectly - with a decent variation in tone from the pickups and controls. So a decent guitar - but at an amazing price. HB have done it again ! Thanks

Made of cheapest parts, but it's the way better, than a price

Playing it for 3 months and nothing broke yet. It actually amazed me by it's quality. Even more expensive guitars can have some defects, but this one came to me and was ready to play. Only 1 thing has to be fixed - tremolo is lying on a deck. The best guitar for a novice.

Great Guitar

This is an excellent sounding guitar for the price. The pickups are no name pickups however they sound really good. I was surprised when playing the guitar how well it played. It came perfectly set up and the intonation was spot on. The matte finish is super cool looking. The guitar is well made, not a flaw at all on anything. The only complaint I have is purely from aesthetic and that's the plastic protective film on the pickguard. When removing the film parts of a 2nd layer of film underneath started to peel off as well and looked horrible. I have never seen 2 layers of film on a pickguard. The top came off very easy and with it some pieces of the 2nd layer however the 2nd layer is nearly impossible to get off all the way. I am still working at it and may have to remove the pickguard to get it off with heat or something that will soften the glue. So right now it looks a bit spotty. Other than that, I really have nothing to complain about. This is a great guitar for all levels. Advanced players will likely want to mod this. I actually love it the way it is however I can see adding some seymour duncan pickups, a tusq nut, an upgraded bridge and locking tuners. The tuners are ok but could be better. The tremelo bar is a little loose however I was able to fix that with plumbers tape which fixed the extra play in the bar and the looseness of it. All oi all, yes, this is a really good guitar for under $100 and has a ton of potential to be a really great guitar with a few mods. Absolutely incredible. Great work Harley Benton!

very happy

Light weight, nice sounds, very happy with this guitar.

Looks awesome too.

This is an nice and very, very cheap beginner guitar with an humbucker and 2 single coils.

I'm satisfied with the options you get with this beginner guitar and the tonal options this offers for an beginner guitarist.

With an good setup, cleaning the frets up with steel wool and humidifying the neck with citrus oil, this guitar works for anyone for an long, long time.

You need to fasten up the screws on the output jack, because it can get loose very easily.

The neck needs some steelwool grinding so it can get some shredding capabilities as it can get hard to move your hand up and down the neck when your hand gets some sweat after playing sometimes.

Amazing.

if I wanted to be extremely nitpicking, you'll need 4 mins to smooth out some frets.

This guitar is WOW great

this was my first HB guitar and I will confess I was not a fan of Strat style guitars for playing until i got this one. I expected it to be okay and somewhat playable... I honestly got it because of the satin finish, and it was going to be an eyecandy in the room thing. It's very playable and I am happy with this guitar. I expected something similar in quality to that well known brands low end guitar, I got something that is much better all the way around. Its more than just eyecandy.

I really found nothing about this guitar that I wouldn't expect from a low cost guitar, I've paid more and regretted it for a guitar based on a branding.

this was a b stock $70 guitar that I'm honestly shocked its this good. As with all new guitars there are minor things you have to do to make them comfortable to you and this was an easy one to do that with. I would recommend this to someone who is just becoming interested all the way to someone who has been playing for years.

Great guitar a real bargain

Well made, good looking and sounding instrument

Fantastic

What more could you want for a guitar of this price! Looks amazing, pickups have a decent sound and it feels amazing to hold and is lightweight. The knobs feel a little bit cheap but still look good. I'm sure over time I may upgrade pickups and various other parts but even if you keep it as it is he won't be disappointed.

Very nice guitar for the money

Ordered in early Jan, and was told to wait 7-8 weeks.

It arrived couple weeks ago, and here are my initial observations...

PROS

1. Looks even better than in the pictures. The red tortoise pick-guard really nice against the matte black body- which had no finish flaws.

2. Neck is fairly straight, and the fretwork is good - level with no sharp edges although I did polish them.

3. Stays in tune well, but I imediately replaced the basic tuners with Harley Benton brand locking tuners (black). Nut and bridge seem fine.

4. The pickups are pretty good, and all 5 positions are usable from clean to dirty tones & various points in between.

Note: Bridge pickup is quite hot, so some amp/pedal tweaking might be necessary to get the sound you're after (especially since it's not wired to the tone control - per usual Strat-style configuration).

5. Electronics are fine for what they are, and do the job without fuss. This can be considered another upgrade point in the future.

CONS

1. The strings are a bit heavy and flat feeling- personal taste thing.

2. Rough edges on the pickguard around the selector switch cutout. A quick 2-3 mins with a small file should do the trick if it bugs you.

3. Screw-in vibrato arm is either too loose or too tight, which is typical of this type of application. You'll need either a small spring or some tape to make it stay in your personal sweet-spot.

CONCLUSION

If you're a beginner or intermediate player looking for a good-quality HSS Strat that won't break the bank, this is a definite contender. Great deal and upgrade platform: as you get better and want to get to know a guitar by working on it, or someone who needs a backup guitar, or just to get a strat type w/ HSS layout?

Perfect as a first guitar, or to a budget alternative!

Was considering getting a new guitar to get back to playing in standard tuning and seeing as I mainly write in lower tunings, I wasn't looking at spending a lot on what could be something I maybe wouldn't play often.

Upon receiving this HSS strat I'm simply blown away by the value of this thing. It arrived pretty much perfectly set up and no visible blemishes or faults you'd expect on something so cheap.

The guitar is heavier than my Squier, which I don't mind at all.

The finish is really good, knobs are of a lighter plastic which is to be expected but more than adequate. The pickups sound surprisingly snappy, the only downside there being some noise most likely due to lack of shielding.

All in all, I could 100% recommend this fine instrument to anyone wanting a simple practice guitar or if you get this as a first instrument, you'll be getting an instrument far superior to most other budget guitars.

Harley Benton ST-20HSS SBK Standard Series

Awesome guitar for its value!

Not to seem to be over the top, but............

....this guitar is absolutely awesome; I'm not kidding; It is quite extraordinary, how a guitar that cost €79 can be so good. Its' finish is smooth and sexy; the sound is as good as any Squire Stratocaster that I have ever had. Clean, crunch and ripping distortion, its fab. The pick ups (to me) are surprisingly articulate. The only down aspect is the common problem with low cost guitars is the tremolo (or whammy bar as I like to call it); tuning goes down hill with whammying with gusto (for £70, I can deal with that). I also had a Chord Telecaster covered in the same material which is bliss to play, which made the delivery of this Strat style, even more anticipated. I think Harley Benton have created a Strat styled guitar that is so much more worthy than its price reflects (not an excuse to up the price mind LoL). This is a beauty of a guitar. I also have a Harley Benton ST-62MN, and I thought that was really good. Some may say this is a starter guitar, no, its a guitar. Well done HB, keep up the good work. TB