Harley Benton ST-25TH Firemist 5-stars Reviews

I actually rate it 4.5

It's a beautiful satin gold finish, and has the most beautiful roasted flamed maple neck I've seen. The neck is thin for a Strat, think Ibanez. And it plays so nice. If you like the thick, round, bat-like neck of the standard Strat, this ain't it. This is so much nicer. The locking tuners are a nice addition and the Wilkinson vibrato stays in tune right off the bat. It seems to have linear taper pots, which I prefer, and the switch is solid. The pickups...Not great, not bad, say 3.5 out of 5. Will be replacing them. I'd be proud to put the playability of this Strat up against ANY Strat out there.

What a phenomenal instrument !

I’ve been playing guitar for 20 years, I’ve played live, recorded, and have done a couple small tours. I intend to get back into making music and gigging, as such, I like my instruments to be professional. My main guitar for heavy music is a high end schecter, and it’s beautiful. But I needed a high quality guitar for my non metal interests. And I found the HB 25th Anniversary ST, truthfully I was not expecting much from HB. Out of the box the guitar was near flawless. It is outrageously beautiful, and plays perfect. I don’t understand how HB can make such high quality instruments and sell them for so little. If I had to pick one detail that makes this guitar stand out, it’s the neck. It’s chunkier than my schecter, but in a good way, though it doesn’t quite feel like Vintage Strat. The flames maple and stainless steel frets are perfect….The one con is maybe the pickups, I’m not saying they’re bad, because I somewhat like them, but I could see why someone would want to replace them for more traditional sounding Strat pups. The stock pups are a midrange heavy, a little Hi-Fi sounding, modern take on Strat pickups. If you are on the fence about buying one of these 25th an guitars. Just do it you won’t regret it.

A 5-star strat

Having an actual Fender strat I don't even know why I bought this guitar - I guess to add one more to my collection of several Harley Bentons. And I'm not going to say the usual "at this price this guitar is ..." blah blah. It's a great strat no matter the price. Of course the cheap price means not so strict quality control - the guitar I received had sharp fret edges - not just on a couple but on all the frets (could be due to wood shrinking caused by climate conditions). Not difficult to fix, you just need a small file and a lot of patience, so I'm not going to give lower rating because of this. The color is not really gold but rather copper - not my favourite color but the body finish feels really nice to the touch, not glossy but more matte. The roasted neck is excellent, make sure you lube the fretboard with your favourite lubricant. The single coil pickups sound good to me - on my Fender strat I have Seymour Duncans so I will not compare them 1:1 but with tweaking the EQ on your amp/sim/DAW I think you can get pretty much any strat tone that you need. They are about as noisy as any single coils so no surprise there. The bridge pickup is a rails humbucker which is not bad either, makes the guitar more versatile if you need to take only one guitar to a gig (unless you're a heavy metal guy but then I guess you won't be looking at a strat). The gig bag is also nicer than other cheap gig bags, has a neck pad/strap.

Sounds good, looks great

I am a beginner but this is my second strat style guitar, the first being a Yamaha Pacifica 012.

The HB has a great and unique color combination. The pickups are satisfactory. The roasted maple neck feels comfortable. Great guitar for the price!!

A real great, quality Stratocaster

Great neck, great build quality, great Strat sound. A real quality guitar. I would like to see an equivalent with maple fingerboard . Just a personal preference.

Love the ST-25th

Got it setup to my specs and it plays great

Blown away

Blown away by the neck on this, it looks stunning with the flamed maple, and plays amazing. I really can't believe it, considering I own a Fender Strat that cost almost 4 times this. Only negatives for me were the frets arrived a bit scratchy and the pickups look odd being bright white against the pick guard but hardly deal breakers as the frets were fine after a little play and when the strings are dead I can polish them.

I absolutely don't need more guitars but very tempted to get another anniversary model if the rest are like this.

It needed very little setup, relief was off a little and lowered the action a bit. Very very impressed.

Great guitar, insane value for the price just buy one

Fretboard and baked maple neck exuisid, top notch, better than my 2000$ les Paul. No string buzz.. wouldn't stay in tune when i got it tho because the strings were too big for the nut, but when i went from original strings 46-10(i think) -8,5 and set it up with adjusting the thrus rod, put nut sauce oil/grease in nut and under the two things that keep the strings down on the head stock, stretched the strings and go up and down on the tremolo tune it again again and again stretch them really good.. it stays in tune perfectly and i can abuse the wammy with out troubles(big thumbs up) Pick ups are accually really good. Only thing i can complain about is that there is this shhch shrrch sound when i use the wammy espesally. Probably goes away if i change the wiering and pickups, might be the grounding idk. Half n hour after i wrote this i had to rewrite the review. The reason why the wammy was making this crackling noices, I googled it.. no answer there.. but i found out it was the little screw that makes the wammy loose or not, it was like right in between loose and tight and I guess i was not well grounded but close enough for electricity to go between the two parts of metall. If u have this crackling noice issue just tighten or loosen that little wammy umbrako screw. Now the pick ups sound way better too. 5/5 and that's an understatement when u look at the price(offcourse you can get some high end better sounding pick ups.. but those will cost as much as this guitar 😂 it plays better, feels better, sounds better than any squier/Fender ive ever tried. If your looking for a cheap strat, buy this one👍

Don't think you could find a better guitar at this price

I would like if they offered other colours with same specs.

Great bit of kit

Can not fault it for the money

25th strat

my buddy said demos were lacking, he played mine and said crap why didn't I get one? is that enough? Once again rail HBer bridge not my cup of tea but split sounds just fine. no other complaint here

Another Winner

These anniversary guitars are hitting way above their price point. But This is my favorite due to the hot rail bridge pickup. Luuuuuuv it!!!!!

Amazing Guitar

This was my first Harley Benton, I wanted a workhorse gigging guitar and this is perfect

Superb sound and playability - outplays some of my higher end guitars

I wouldn’t hesitate recommending this to gigging guitarists like myself who want a decent reliable guitar that won’t break the bank

I will be definitely buying more HB products

I’m impressed.

Hard to believe the quality for the price. An awesome guitar. The more I play it, the more I like it. Thinking of getting another one of this series.

BEST HB STRAT and push/pull volume

I was looking for a decent budget strat like guitar, but I stay away from strats due to 1 specific reason...tremelo. They're not Floyd Rose tremelos by an means and 90+% of the time, they suck. This guitar has a slightly upgraded tremelo over the other HB strats and with stainless frets sold me. I was pleasantly surprised by the blade bridge pickup, it's pretty damn hot. It's just about as hot as any Rosewill humbucker. The pickguard is something that jumps out at my wife as it doesn't look good to us. It's an odd mint and I will be trying to replace it with a white like there's on the Te-25th, as that Iooks much cleaner. The guitar has a 5 way pickup selector and a push/pull pot on the volume for more tones. Excellent guitar.

perfect out of the box

This is harley number 12 for me and keeps the tradition of a good guitar for the money. Have been playing for over 46 years and these guitars fit right in with the high end brands. I do hope Harley Benton remains loyal to a commitment of quality which will give them a solid place in the guitar market.

It's so great I'm thinking of buying a TE25

It's so great I'm thinking of buying a TE25

Firemist , Unbelievable!

I got mine yesterday and it was fantastic out of the box, couldn't actually put it down! I showed it to.my Guitar tech and now hes ordered the same! Gigging with it this Saturday instead of using my Strat Plus Deluxe , never expected to be saying that!

Best Harley I've owned.

I now have 5 Harley Benton's. For over a year I'm been searching for a ST style guitar and even thought about building my own super ST. Then I seen the coming soon Harley Benton video and decided to hold till I seen what was coming. So glad I waited. I couldn't build my own and even come close to this quality and price. You can tell they took extra special care of the 25th series guitars. To my shock the steel frets were even polished and I own a Fusion, HP42 and they need a little work and I love those. Why the 5* even though if sound is 4/5 well for the quality and price I would give 6*. Hats off good work you earned my repeat business, even if I do stare at it more than play it. Piece of art is added bonus.

I have bought many Harley Bentons, some being pretty good, but this is by far the best one I have ever owned, and the first that's compelled me to write a review. Some things to know: the color is almost like a copper more than a gold, but I also find it really unique being that color. The pickups are pretty decent, but if you are picky about pickups, you may want to change them (I almost always do). Also, I am not sure if they are all going to be this way, but the flamed maple neck on mine was ultra flamed, more flamed than I've seen on any other guitar in person before, but I probably got somewhat lucky getting one with such stellar flamed maple. The stainless steel frets are crazy smooth and shiny. I've gotten stainless steel frets before that were still scratchy, but these are not like this, Harley Benton seems to save their best materials for these.