Harley Benton ST-20MN LH CA Reviews

Outstanding guitar for the price

Summary: This guitar exceeded my expectations and was a pleasant surprise in quality & sound. Well finished, a great modding platform.

Background: I've been playing guitar 15 years,and I've owned several S-Style guitars.

Review: Right out of the box, the fit and finish was great. Neck is straight, no sharp fret ends, no blemishes; the guitar was well set up. This instrument is about 7.5 lbs, light compared to your average S-Style; for me this is a plus (I'm a small guy and I don't like heavy guitars). Neck profile is comfy like a modern "C" but a bit thicker, yet with the flatter radius it feels easier to chord on.

Sound: Most surprising were the pickups. Neck pickup is nothing special, but the middle and bridge positions were very pleasant tonally. I've used them for recording with good results. I did upgrade the electronics & hardware with stuff I already had on hand, but you could get away practicing/recording with this on a budget. There are some minor nitpicks I'll mention below about the component quality, but frankly those are to be expected with a guitar at this price. Don't kid yourself. The wonderful thing about this model is that you can upgrade those components rather easily at your preference.

Pros: Great finish, neck well set up, comfortable and light, pleasant/usable tone.

Cons: Undersized import tremolo block (I upgraded to a full-size block and it fit but you'll lose some tremolo movement), mini-pots (I upgraded to full-size pots and they fit but you'll need to ream out the pickguard holes a bit).

This was my first guitar from this company. I was very pleased with the overall quality and affordability of this instrument. The finish was beautiful and the guitar was set up nicely. Frets were leveled nicely and no sharp ends. Great job!

Unbelievable value great action . Got a USA strat and obviously for the money it’s not going to sound like that but it sounds good and as Mark knocker once said,I always wanted a red guitar.

Great guitar

The guitar is very nice, better quality than expected. The neck pickup is a bit muddy or else I would of given 5 stars. The paint job is very nice with a High Gloss Candy Apple Red. This won't be my last Harley Benton guitar for sure.

Great price, high quality!

Looking for a bargain priced, high quality Stratocaster-style guitar, then this Harley Benton is just right. Fit and finish are great. Minor drawback, the neck is unfinished natural wood. I would prefer if it was finished with polyurethene to protect the wood from body oils and discoloration. I may poly it on my own as a DIY project. As others have pointed out, the pots are not left-handed proper and the knobs are righty. This is typical for left-handed budget guitars. I'd pay a bit more for left-handed pots and knobs and poly-neck.

Astonishing

So, recently i found out about harley benton guitars and after many thoughts and reviews i decided to buy one. Its the first time buying an electric guitar so i didnt know what to expect. Ordered this red beauty since it was a left handed model. i bought it with an HB-20R b-stock amp. when i first played it today i was amazed on how this low priced guitar can sound that good on the clean channel. I still havent tried much the overdrive channel because of the neighbours,but till now i've been satisfied.

pros:

beautiful

awsome sound and nice model

cheap

cons:

till now not any cons, just the amp might lose a lil bit of distortion when put in high levels buts its not a big deal

tone controls dont give that much of a change, but volume surely does!

All in all, i would recommend this guitar because its perfect for beginners and its ahead of its price :)

A Strat for £65... I mean to say...

I bought this at the same time as my TE-90 QM on an impulse, and thus avoided paying the £10 postage.

Firstly, I'm giving this guitar 5 stars purely based on the fact that it is unbelievable value for money. It is a beautiful looking guitar, with a lovely finish on the body. The frets are fairly smooth and the fret ends are neatly finished, although the wood on the neck surface is slightly rough, which doesn't affect general playing (like bar chords for example) but is noticeable when bending strings. One criticism: the volume pot isn't too bad, but the tone pots hardly have any affect at all.

HOWEVER...

This is a brand new, well made, and beautiful-looking Stratocaster copy for a handful of change, and would be a very worthwhile purchase as a single guitar or as addition to a collection. Personally I'm going to keep this long-term, so will be upgrading it over the coming weeks. But even unchanged it really is a lot of guitar for the money; when you think that an American Stratocaster would probably be about 20 times the price or more, it puts it into perspective.

great value guitar

I bought this turned up in a few days packaging was fine.

one note, the guitar i have has a dark Rosewood fretboard not a maple fretboard as seen in the photos.

other than that it's as seen in the photos - mine is the leftie version.