Harley Benton ST-20MN CA Standard Series Reviews

Good If You Know How

So I bought this guitar just as a supplement for a set with HB Extreme-76, like if I have to pay quite a money for delivery, I want to order as much as I can in a single order, and I had just enough free money to get this one.

I have another guitar, a legendary beginner guitar, Her Majesty Squier Bullet Stratocaster (HSS version). I only play for almost 9 months, and it was bout time I get interested in new guitars. So this review will largely be based on a comparison between this and Squier.

Pros:

- beautiful af. Finish is just perfect, it looks more expensive than Squier (AWT color), despite actually costing me almost 3 times less (Fender production pricing in Russia is a little bit... insane, to say the least)

- has 22 frets

- gives you an idea of how SSS configuration works (that is a thing in my case)

- frets are very well leveled (contrary to Squier)

- arrived in perfect setting

- tremolo system allows you to achieve lower notes (goes down 3 half steps, while Squier only goes 2 half steps down)

Neutrals:

- neck is way thicker and feels completely different

- tuners aren't as bad, nor are they any good

- pickups actually can deliver up to classic heavy metal (almost as good as Squier's humbucker), and they aren't bad, but they surely do suffer from their cost

- also B string saddle had one of the screws totally screwed up, I couldn't turn it at all, so luckily I had some old Squier saddles to replace it with

Cons:

- rough fret ends (they probably won't kill your hands, but they really needed work)

- nut is a joke (not even a funny one)

- mine's contact would get lost from time to time (if I was moving the guitar while playing, and I was moving a lot) - an issue with screwing the hole where you connect the cable

So what i did to it was:

- changing the nut to GraphTec (the one that matches these dimensions is too low, so I didn't make it go to the bottom of the slot and it's stuck midway; still A LOT better than stock one)

- screwing the cable hole properly - now it has no connection issues

- sanded all the fret ends (unfortunately, this is the only type of work I'm not skilled at, so I only had a sand paper and a rough idea of how I want it to be)

- changed string trees to Gotoh (just for memes)

- immediate restringing (stock strings were even more of a joke than the nut)

- screwing properly everything there was

And I ended up having a guitar that rivals Squier, which is also modded by the time! I think if I change pickups to more serious ones, learn to solder and to shield, this will be a guitar that will last for decades!

High quality for a low price

Today I received my combo order of a ST-20 MN CA Guitar with HB 10G Amplifier and different kinds of accessories. I was very surprised to see such a high quality. The amplifier works great and it has by my surprise a built-in overdrive and the sound is very good. The guitar has a perfect finishing touch, every thing is well done and smooth with a beautiful candy apple red colour. I never expected such a high quality!!!

Great sounding guitar

The only flaw on this which is a minor one is the very sharp fret ends on both sides of the neck. It will definitely need fret work before it's playable. However it has a very nice strat sound considering the generic pickups. Once I do the fret work and set this guitar up properly including action and intonation this will be a very nice guitar to play. Absolutely worth the money spent.

My first guitar

If you are begginer like me its really cool guitar with amazing style and sounds pretty nice and i have really fun trying play new songs dont think just buy it :D

Nice looking guitar, but fretbuzz al over!

looks - good

fret ends - good

pickups - reasonable

negatives: fretbuzz! No setup or mod will ever fix this. This one is going back for sure.

crack in the varnish at the neck mount

I bought the guitar with delivery to Russia, there are no problems in sound, the color and painting are perfect, when unpacking they found a chip of varnish at the place of the neck attachment. Perhaps it happened during delivery, a little annoying.

great but..

feels great and sounds not bad, unfortunately, the one I received had a striped bridge saddle, so I had to buy a new one. overall great!

Better than expected but I did a lot of work

I wasn't expecting a lot but this was bought as a modding platform as I'm currently stuck under lockdown.

I changed the tuners for GB lockers, rotary string trees, I filed the fret ends and polished the frets before adding some XL 10's.

The result, I tend to pick this up before my PRS as it sounds good, the neck is surprisingly nice to play and the pickups are actually quite good. Plus, I don't need to worry about knocking it as I'm going to try a relic look on it next.

It's my second HB and both have been really good vaklue for money.

Candy apple gorgeousness

After having an ST-62MN (which I absolutely love), I wondered how this ST-20MN compared, considering the price. I was not disappointed. Out of the box, I was greeted with the most lovely Candy apple red coloured body, and the highly bleached look of the satin smooth Maple neck. Quite simply, for the price, it is awesome. It looks so much more expensive than it is. Plug in and play; no worries there. 3 of the 5 switch positions sound suitably Strat like. Positions 3 and 4 are more difficult to distinguish. This guitar really sets the Harley Benton tone for low cost quality guitars. Can't think of another guitar maker sounding and feeling this good for the price. Nice one HB. TB

Good at three times the price

I'm a bass player and wanted a cheap guitar to lay down a few guide tracks and for noodling about, nothing serious. For £56 I really wasn't expecting much, even given how good modern budget instruments are for the money, and the rise of Squier, et al and so on and so forth. So I was very surprised to find that this is a very good electric guitar. It was very close to being set-up out of the box. The action was surprisingly low, it sounds fine, the stock strings aren't rubbish and it's very easy to play.

The only downside for me is that excessive use of the whammy bar tends to put the guitar out of tune, but I think this may be because the strings are new and are still stretching, so we'll see. I don't know much about tremolos anyway, I've never owned a guitar with one fitted before.

This instrument would be a very good buy at three times this price, so it really is a steal. If you were worried that a guitar this cheap surely can't be any good, then worry not and get your credit card out. :)