Harley Benton ST-62 SB Vintage Series Reviews

Great guitar if you're looking for the single coil sound

I'll start off with some pros and cons

Pros: The sound is ridiculously good on it, the neck pick up is the best in my opinion but that's with strats in general for me. The tuners are actually pretty good, they're better than on my HB35+ which is about ¤100 more. The hardware feels pretty solid and not easily broken. It definitely looks the part too, I want to paint the pick guard black though, just because I like it more, not because it's terribly offensive to look at (to me at least). There are not sharp fret ends poking out and the output jack is well set and the set up in general is decent. I've only tested Squires in shops, never had one but I've tested a lot: Affinities, Standards, Classic Vibes etc. And I think quality wise it stands between a standard and classic vibe which is pretty good in it of itself.

Cons: There are the usual finish problems you can expect from an HB (although my HB35+ was absolutely perfect) only two though, I'll upload the pictures later. The neck is not what I expected, I expected a skinny neck considering its supposed to be a sixties strat (correct me if I'm wrong!!) but the neck is not much thinner than the hollow body the plastic pickguard protection is annoying as balls as I haven't been able to remove it from under the knobs and when using them it sounds like the guitar came from a cereal box. The colour on the pick ups and the knobs don't match the pick ups are frost white I would say and the knobs are vintage White (you can't really tell from the first picture). By far the biggest con though and I'm sure this an honest mistake and can just get one somewhere else is that the included trembar doesn't fit through the bridge, it's too thick, maybe I'm missing something?

All in all I'm pretty happy with it and I do plan on keeping it for those SRV tones not doing the whole 13 gauge thing though, hope this was helpful for at least one person! *Ps forgive the mistakes it was only so you could hear the sound of it going exclusively through a boss Katana 50, what can I say, I'm a student on a budget and both pieces of gear are giggable so that's a win in my book.

Great quality for the price

Distinct sound on the pick-up combinations, volume and tone knobs work great as well. Sound is overall on the warm side.

I managed to lower the action a bit on the bridge and overall plays and sounds great for the price.

Finishing looks impeccable, doesn't feel or look cheap but that's about it.

I haven't tried the vibrato yet but even if it isn't very good I'm already very happy with the purchase.

Exceptional value for money. Perfect if you know how to set a guitar up yourself

I?m really happy with this guitar. The pickups are really good. It?s nice and resonant and now I?ve done some work on it, it plays and sounds awesome. No sharp edges on the frets but they needed a level. The action was very high to begin with and could not be brought much lower before I levelled the frets. After doing that it is much better. The nut slots also needed a fair bit of cutting and cleaning out to bring the action at the nut end lower and make the tuning stable. When I took the neck off it took a chunk of lacquer off that obviously hadn?t fully dried. Coloured it in with a sharpie and it?s not particularly noticeable. I also shielded the cavities. That all being said, now I?ve done the work it plays and sounds as good as any other Strat I?ve played including ones over a grand. The good thing is, I don?t have any worries about damaging it etc as it cost peanuts. I?ve already ordered a Harley Benton 335 to keep it company

Great

Great guitar, it served me well.

This should cost more

This is an absolute steal. If I had to choose between this and a squire I would choose the Harley Benton all day long.

Everything you need from a ST guitar

I bought this back in October 2014 as I had sold my previous electric guitar some months before and needed a cheap Strat copy to play around the flat, and I still play it regularly today despite never having modified or upgraded it besides installing a white scratchplate.

At the time I nearly went for a much more expensive Squier or Vintage brand guitar instead, but settled on this and have zero regrets. The lacquered finish on the neck is utterly luxurious, the pickups sound great, and it feels just like it should, although the C-shaped neck profile felt a bit chunky at first compared to my previous Fender Strat, which had been closer to a V in shape. It was set up perfectly out of the box(unheard of for me, as I'm extremely fussy about the setup of my guitars and previously had come to expect all brand new guitars to play like dogs -not so with this one!)! As with all the Wilkinson pickups I've tried the quality is superb- not perfect, but good enough that I'd need to spend a lot of money to replace them with anything better.

So now for the negative thing. Left in a corner of my flat that had a little bit of direct sunlight for just a couple of weeks, I got back from a holiday to find the laquer on the body had turned a sour, milky colour around the edges, which was a little disappointing at the time, but honestly, for what I paid for this guitar I really cannot complain!

So- looks great, plays great, sounds great!

Harley Benton ST-62 RW SB Vintage Series

Delivery as per the order 4 days UK, great turnaround.

the guitar came pretty well set up, very playable and certainly very good value for money. This guitar plays better than guitars costing a lot more money. I would highly recommend these to players of all levels. This will not be my last Harley Benton

Awesome Guitar

Me and my band mates were really impressed with this guitar.

The feel of this guitar is very good and does not come far form my other (more expensive); Bright and responsive pickups, the neck is fast and the frets were good out of the bag.

The setup was done very good and had no problems with it, and simple tuning did the trick . Intonation was alright and no fret buzz, tremolo bridge is not very reliable (its the only downsize i found until now).

I am very happy with this guitar, already made some concerts with her and also recorded some tracks and both in appearance, feel and sound you would not differ this from other most expensive guitars in the market, it is the real bang for the buck

After Santa's been and gone

Treat yourself; this guitar for very little money will see you through the dark nights of January and February. Beautiful colours and finish on body and neck, Played straight out of the box with minimal adjustment; despite previous commentaries I have no issue with the Basswood body, my Yamaha Pacifica and LAG Imperator I66 both have Basswood and both play incredibly well. Great tonal diversity throughout all PUP positions using tone controls ending with a with blindingly raw lead sound on bridge position PUP (isolated from tone control)

A Better Alternative to a Fender Squier for Almost Same Price

I was really impressed with the fit and finish of this guitar. As for packaging, the shipping carton showed almost no damage but the pickup selector on the guitar had punched a hole in the box causing the blade to be slightly bent. This could be avoided in the future by insuring the selector switch is covered with a block of styrofoam as I found on the L-450 GT P90 that was in the same shipping carton. The blade was easily straightened and does not appear to be damaged internally. The Wilkinson pickups are bright and responsive and the neck is a joy with no sharp frets. The setup, however, will need to be redone. Intonation is somewhat off and there is some fret buzz but not unexpected with a tremolo bridge. Bottom line: why buy a MIM Fender Strat when you can get an ST-62 of equal quality for the price of a Squier? Signed: A very satisfied customer!!

ST-62 compared to my Mexican Strat - "meh"

In all aspects my Fender Mexican Strat (with MIDI pickup which I don't use) sounds better. However, at the ST-62 SB's price, it may still be a good option.

The ST-62 looks good and the frets are filed down well so you won't cut your fingers like many budget guitars. However, setup was disappointing. Action was set way too low causing the top bass string to sound awful. After adjusting the truss rod to raise the strings, the bass string sounded better but still not that good. I prefer a real Strat's bass string to sound a bit more like a Fender Precision Bass sound which is what I get from my stock Mexican Strat.

If you are a shredder or prefer highly overdriven sounds, the ST-62 is a good choice. For clean sounds, however, while the bottom 3 treble stings sound good, the other strings get progressively worse as frequency goes down. The 3rd string is just slightly worse. The 2nd string worse than the 3rd and the top bass string is kind of cheap sounding even after action was adjusted.

Problem: HUM

When I moved around to various locations near my pedalboard, my Mexican Strat was basically hum-free in all pickup selector positions. In contrast, the ST-62 hummed like crazy in any pickup selector position. The ST-62 had to be angled and positioned carefully when playing to eliminate most of the hum.

I will probably replace the neck pickup with something better and see if that helps. Because of the hum problem, I wouldn't try to play this guitar in a live venue.

Nice for the money

You should set it up, it's unplayable, after set up it became quite good guitar, nice pickups, but electronics should be replaced + copper shielding will kill noise. For the money you pay for, it is good.

It has paper veneer (never seen something like that before) of 2 piece alder, + thick poly finish. I was surprised when stripped it off and ugly 4 piece basswood appear under that veneer. Refinished it with surf green nitro. Neck is very nice, of course it needs some work on it. Great guitar for modding.

If you played better guitars, don't buy it unless you will not set and mod it.

Outstanding.

I'll be honest, for £80 you don't expect anything special, but how wrong I was.

This is outstanding value for money, and better than other copies costing much more.

Excellent build quality, stunning looks, and a beautiful clean sound.

I really can't fault this.