Harley Benton ST-20MN CA Standard Series Reviews

Incredible quality for the price.

Played very well out of the box, the finish is well above it's price point. Thoroughly recommended for beginners or as a practice guitar for when you don't want to use your main axe.

Superb quality and cheap

Was surprised with quality. Super sheap and well made

It came with rusted springs

i opened the back of the guitar to see the springs were completely rusted like they came off a 50 year old guitar, The guitar was obviously never checked due to the fact you can tell the guitar never had a set of strings on it to test anything. It has horrible action after trying many different setups on it, If I showed you how the nut is cut at an angle and how the strings slide inside the nut you would say why are you bothering with any setup when the nut is completely unusable.... I had to keep the broken unplayable guitar with old rusty parts because Tomann made sure returning the guitar is just about impossible. So pretty much Tomann just stole my money and gave me a completely broken unusable item like I was getting scammed on Ebay, The difference is with Ebay I would have gotten my money back. With Tomann everything is just very illegal ..... It was and is by far the most horrible experience Ive ever had buying anything

nice guitar

bit flat on the sound that you can get out of it, but still not the worst. I don't regret buying it because its a real nice addition to my guitars

My most difficult review

I've done over 30 reviews of different products on this website and this one is by far the most difficult one I've done; not because of lack of words, but because of expectations.

People will immediately scold me not to expect a lot from an instrument at this price point, and this argument seems to be present a lot when reading the other reviews on this page, 'the price point', 'for this price', etc.

Let's cover all we can:

Looks and feel - out of the box, the red is very deep, well done on the outside. Inside the cracks (inside the output jack, around the back of the bridge) not so well, but it doesn't bother me.

The neck is quite pale, the fingerboard is a separate piece, the frets seem to go very deep. The neck size is chunkier than other guitars I have with a C neck. The satin finish may be satin, but not a lot of coats. It felt slightly coarse, so I did a pass with 1200 grit sandpaper. Much smoother now. Compared to my MIM Player strat, definitely not the same.

Removing the neck from the pocket, it seems as the inside of the neck is several pieces glued together. Some saw dust inside there and in the output jack, but again, nothing terrible.

The output jack is not smooth. I play this guitar with a cable I have previously used around the house. The grip is so strong that I have to pull on the cable. I thought over some time it would relax, but I still do not see it. May be a candidate for replacement.

Tuners - possibly the worst I have tried on. Some of them were too tight and others significantly more loose and the guitar just wouldn't hold tune with them. I had them replaced with a set of factory Fender tuners (with redrilling, of course) and it is much better

Pickups - out of the box and no setup, not a bad sound. they look like ceramic (I swapped them). The pleasant surprise was the middle pickup, which sounded really good, very bright reminiscent of a thin/jangly strat pickup.

Weight - 3.2kg. The basswood body shines here.

Switch and pots - you know they are cheap and do not expect anything else. But, they do the work and they stayed on. The pots follow the traditional strat wiring, mid tone is for neck, bottom tone is for the mid pickup. I had that changed to include the bridge pickup, where tone changes would actually be useful. There is a lot of tone change, but you need to be very slow in movements; when on 5 it is like it is on 0.

Tremolo system - you will probably need to overtighten the bar to have it stay somewhere useful. The system itself is quite reactive.

Biggest nuisance - all three tremolo springs in the back were completely rusty. This is something needed for the bridge assembly to work and cannot be explained with the price point. Luckily, I had a cheap set at home, and I'll tell you, it does a better job. The inspection card says this guitar was inspected end of May 2022, so rusty springs in 6 months? Makes me wonder about the spring material or storage.

Biggest positive surprise - the body cavity is shielded. You can see the grounding wire soldered to the spring claw in the back. It is very quiet.

Final thoughts: I added stock Player Strat pickups and the thing is quite usable, especially in the in-between positions. The pickups here are slightly darker than I remember them, possibly the wood/electronics combination. A nice modding thing where I can experiment with lower or open tunings, maybe make it a slide guitar, considering how flat the fretboard radius is. There really are a lot of options in play. And I look forward to all of them.

best in price

you can not get a guitar this good for this price anywhere

get a bandage, you are good to go!

Those frets end are sharp like razor sharp, but that's what you get for cheap made guitar, if there is anything too good to be true then those youtuber affiliates are promoting the product not reviewing.

price is equal to the quality BUT.. if you are comparing this to squier it's a much cheaper guitar to begin with and not so different in quality standart. so you can buy it and refinish the fret by yourself.. overal it's comfortable to play with.

Outstanding for the price

This guitar arrived yesterday and I have hardly been able to put it down! It's amazing quality for the price. The paint job is genuinely flawless and contrasts beautifully with the maple neck and fretboard. The frets were a little rough but nothing I can't deal with. The switches and knobs all work as they're supposed to, and the sound is gorgeous. The action is too high for me but again that's easily fixed. I'm so pleased with this guitar and absolutely recommend. I can't understand how they can sell such a quality instrument for this price but I'm not complaining.

Harley Benton ST-20MN CA Standard Series

This guitar probably the best in its price range. A perfect foundation for amatour builders/modders. As it always, top quaility wood from HB, and the rest its up to you how you use/change/like. Personally, i built a top shelf quality SuperStrat from this. The body color, and the neck are just amazing itself. Plus point it have a rectangular Pup cavity, so you can build anything you want right away, thats very nice. I recommend!

Good guitar for a very low price!

What I love: the look of the maple neck. It's why I bought this specific version of this Harley Benton Strat. Very nice! Also, the price is obviously unbeatable. Great as a fun project to replace a part every now and then.

Overall, the build quality is unfortunately one of the worse aspects of the guitar. The frets are fine, even the default strings were totally okay, but what I find lacking is the whammy bar. In terms of functionality, I might as well leave it off (if it wasn't for the cool look ;-)), because the bridge creaks and groans every time I use the whammy.

Also, I recently found that the finish is chipped off in a place (luckily not where you'd really see it, so no big deal). I don't think it is something that I did myself, maybe it happened during shipping or before that, but there's no real way to know.

I had to majorly tweak the intonation and the action of some of the strings, but about half of them were already really well intimated. It's not something I'd obviously expect from an 80 euro guitar to have perfectly intonation fresh out of the factory, so no worries there; I spent about half an hour of fiddling with a screwdriver and it's much better now.

Other than that, the sound is pretty good for these stock pickups! Note that the wiring is classic Strat wiring, so keep in mind that the two tone pots control the neck and middle pickup, and the bridge pickup has no tone control.

Once I slap on some Elixir strings and polish the fretboard a bit (tip: buy lemon oil wipes), I think I'll be very happy with this steal of a guitar! Definitely recommended, aside from a few weak areas.

nice strat!

i wasnt expecting much from this one. specially for the price. great guitar, very light. good pickups! just had to have it set up. the finish is awesome!

Project Guitar

I have several HB guitars and I have enjoyed each one so far. I change out a few basic things if I am not pleased with it but so far so good for the money. The components as is will get you rolling. I have fun trying the budget guitars for the fun in it and these are fun.

For the price, please!!!!

Not bad at all, color finish, beats them all, playabillity, change the strings as in any new or old guitar, set it up and you have a guitar. I got a few in my home studio, I just had ti have it no regrets!

Great guitar!

An excellent musical instrument for little money. I use it at home for training and at rehearsals. Well put together, I just polished the frets and tweaked the truss rod a little to my needs. I purchased a red body and a maple fingerboard. The sound is bright and crisp - I got everything I wanted from a Strat. Perhaps I will replace the nut. Otherwise, I like everything. You don't need the best to learn or get to know the Stratocaster. I recommend to buy.

What a bargain!

I bought this knowing full well it isn't a very expensive guitar, but I am pleasantly shocked at how good it is for the money. I plan on playing some gigs with it! If they ever make this in this color with a humbucker in the bridge position, I'm definitely buying it.

Amazing value for money

This guitar is not perfect. But it competes favorably with similarly imperfect (more expensive 'name brand') guitars.

With the swimming pool route underneath the pick guard (if you're prepared to invalidate the warranty) there are many modification options (switching to HSS, HH, extra switches etc. or just because you like more room to work).

But if you're a beginner and, like any guitar at this price point, are prepared to ask a tech or luthier to do a basic set up, you're going to have a lot of fun and have a nice sounding guitar.

Pickups are respectable out of the box, tuning stability very acceptable and everything works fine. Managed to get the action pretty low. NB the chunky C profile more suitable to bigger hands.

warning Harley Bentons are addictive

Soooo, this is my fourth s- type harley benton. i have st62 deluxe, st20 black hss, st90 ash. They are lots of fun and I really enjoy them. The candy red st20 was delivered today and for £56 uk pounds its a treat. It is very different from my other hb st's due to the fretboard. I love it. Fret edges are a bit sharp but thats ok. Sounds great, plays great. If lost or stolen i would deffo buy it again. Overall i have 10 x hb guitars - love them all except the glossy neck models as my hand sometimes sticks/drags on the glossy neck. I hate to say this but i prefer picking up a hb guitar to my Parker guitar. These guitars are fun to play. I;ll be buying more......very happy.

A very nice sounding guitar.

A good value for money Guitar with a nice sound also. I would recommend for a beginner or intermediate Guitar player. Well worth the money "A Bargain!" Mick

Great value; amazing guitar for the price.

I bought this because I had heard it was great value for the price, and I wasn't disappointed. I wanted a ST style guitar to play around with and didn't want to break the bank. This was it, and I'm not disappointed.

The build is good, the sound good. I think I will probably replace the tuners, but other than that, I'm more than happy for now.

This would be a great starter guitar, and for me, it's great for an advanced player to mod and upgrade over time, and just have access to that ST style sound and range.

good, but ....

string is trash,screw of saddles too very long))