Harley Benton ST-62CC RW Inca Silver 5-stars Reviews

Can't be beat for value and quality

I'm mostly a Strat player. When the ST62 came out, I was intrigued enough to buy one just to see how good they actually were. Mine arrived flawless and totally playable. No dead frets and a low action. The neck was comfortable, and though I found the frets a little smaller than I'm used to (I favour higher frets), I still found this very playable. (Similar height to most Fender guitars ... not small like cheap copies). The Roswell pickups performed well, although a little weak in the output department. I also changed the scratchplate because I hated the white single ply, which was factory standard. The big downer was the tremelo unit. Whilst it stayed in tune, the saddles were very poor, and the arm rattled a lot. It's not something that can be swapped out easily (as I found out). The trem block is very thin, and a thicker block just doesn't fit the cavity. ... so the only options are either to replace the saddles or get the router out and remove some wood from the rear cavity to fit a new trem unit. I tried both, but the sound didn't really improve. The finish, though, is stunning, and the build quality and factory setup is fantastic. You won't find better for the money.

Much more than just value for money !!

As a seasoned professional and owner of various hi and low price guitars (strats among others), I decided to purchase the ST 62-CC in order to use it, mainly, for my private lessons studio. The adjustment of action and intonation was easily completed in a few minutes

and the instrument was ready to play. The only problem was a small ground noise issue, which was solved easily (using my poor soldering skills 🙂). Soundwise, I was pleasantly surprised because the real classic, traditional strat vibe is there.

Highly recommended !!

Beautiful looks and sound

It takes upgrades well if you use HB pickguard.

This guitar will surprise you

The caramelised maple neck looks and feels absolutely fantastic on this guitar. It’s totally worth getting just for that feature… You don’t need to upgrade the electronics by the way, but if you do, and do a proper accurate setup on it, it will be your favourite Strat I guarantee you. There were some blemishes and rough edges on the finish inside the tremolo cavity on my guitar, but that doesn’t really matter. This is just an absolute steal at this price!

Dope

Great instrument! Equal to if not better than a squire classic vibe in my opinion.

Unbelievably Awesome!

exceeded my expectations.

color...inca silver is just...! love it.

the neck feels amazing and looks perfect (was initially set on getting a maple neck, shell pink, but love the inca !)

the sounds are awesome. Im using it with my spark or nux headphone amp. both give brilliant results.

there were a couple of dings on it, the fret board needed oiling.

The strings were rusty, but set up is amazingly done. no complaints!

changed the strings to an 8 (from a 9) and set up seems fine for these too. changed it as i have a HSS with 9's and wanted to try something different with this one.

got a graphtech nut and kluson locking tuners, but so far no need to make any mods.

Happy customer. can't wait to buy another soon !

3 months later....STILL my go to guitar. I cant help but keep picking it up every time I want to play. want to get another in pink and one in olympic white...because why not !!

A lot of bang for very little buck

I bought this guitar for a partscaster project. I had fender pickups and neck ready to go but when it arrived, it was just so good out of the box that I ended up keeping the original pickups and neck and using the fender ones for another project.

I already knew the colour was something I wanted. The Inca Silver is more a cross between Gold and Silver. It's really stunning and I just had to have it. You'll pay a lot of money for a custom job with this colour as it's so rare.

The Alnico V pickups were clear as a bell, although I did have to adjust the height a little on the pickups to balance the volume and reduce string vibration interference. But that's par for the course on all guitars.

The neck was smooth and way better than what I was expecting. No fret sprout (which I'd ready was sometimes an issue) and the frests were nice and polished (something else I'd read was an issue). I had none of these problems.

The guitar stays in tune very well, after I made some adjustments to the intonation, action and floating trem height & tension.

The only things I will do in future is replace the machines and the tremolo block. I prefer a heavier, brass block for better sustain and the tuners that are in it, I don't think will suffice for that.

I'm thinking now about getting another Harley Benton strat in Lake Placid Blue but then again, this is more than enough to keep me happy.

100%, fully recommended.

Super guitar!

That is my first electric guitar and I'm so happy I got it! Quality, awesome look and design, good sound and very comfortable to play - this is just the main part of what I would like to say about this guitar. Thank you so much for that product!

Good strat clone

I

I don't speak English well, but I can't speak any other way. The guitar is good for the money, only the frets on the fretboard that came out slightly upset me. The sound of the pickups themselves is quite good, I don’t see any reason to replace them yet.

Quite satisfied. It's a great guitar for the price

I am very satisfied with the guitar. I was not a Strat guy but I wanted to get my hands on a Strat type guitar and this one is great. I did some adjustment myself though (adjust the action and loosen the tremolo). This made it quite easy to play which is awesome. The neck is very comfortable to play which was a good surprise for me. Pick ups are very good and you can get that specific single coil Strat sound.

Overall very beautiful guitar. I really like the color of the neck and the headstock.

There is part of the plastic on the back of the guitar which was obviously not well polished so I have to do it myself but it is only a cosmetic issue.

I would buy it again.

Second ST-62 this year

I bought an ST-62CC Charcoal Frost last month (see my review of that for most of what applies here). Obviously I liked it so much I bought another one :)

I intended to fit a Hotrails to the Charcoal ST-62 as I play mainly metal, but liked the stock Roswell single coils so much that it seemed a shame to sacrifice such great clean and crunch tones to whats basically the one-trick-pony of a Hotrails guitar. So, the only thing to do was buy another ST-62 to have one of each. And, while we're at it, one in maple and one in pau ferro. All other aspects (bar the hardware colour) are identical.

The only area in which the Charcoal ST-62 fell down was the sharp fret edges, whereas in the Inca the fretwork is all good. That's probably luck of the draw with such mass-produced, minimally QC'd guitars like these. The fret tops are still scratchy (like the other one and, judging by the reviews on here, most ST-62s), but this goes away after a few hours of play.

Those vintage split tuning pegs look great but I'd get some locking pegs if I was going to take this out live. The trem, despite it being on a budget guitar and sporting the thinnest zinc block I've yet seen on any guitar, sounds excellent and works as well as any non-locking trem I've used. Comparing it to the Wilkinson unit in an older ST-70 I've had, this sounds better and has way more downward travel.

Fit and finish all as good as I've come to expect from Harley Benton. The 'Inca Silver' isn't the bright sterling silver you'd find on a Fender etc, but an almost 'old gold' greenish hue'd metallic grey. My first impression when opening the box was 'oh...' in the way you might react to an 'unexpected but not what you really wanted' Christmas present. It's grown on me, though, and looks really good on the wall-hanger next to its Charcoal Frost brother.

Chrome hardware looks great, as does the plastic stuff. I should mention how good the scratchplate and electronics are, by the way, if only because Harley Benton have really stepped up in this area lately.

So - upgrades: as the other ST-62 has me covered for basic Strat tones, I'm going to use this as my primary metal rhythm guitar for recording. It'll get a set of three rail-type humbuckers, locking tuners and roller string trees, plus some 500k pots. The chunky neck is fast with great note separation and sustain. Its not as solid sounding as the maple 'board, but probably more suitable as an 'upgrade platform'.

As before - I'd recommend these current ST-62s to anyone as they far surpass the price tag. My two have replaced guitars costing 3-5 times as much, they're that good. But.... you'll need to set it up yourself and its a roll of the dice as to whether you get one with frets that don't need additional work.

A quality guitar for a great price

This is the third HB ST style guitar I've owned.

Currently I have this Inca Silver and the DLX version with metallic pickguard and gold tuners.

So the Inca silver:

Good fretwork, not perfect-but very good, no sharpies. Frets need a polish

Finish quality is amazing, not a blemish to be seen.

Tuners are smooth and responsive.

A step up in quality from the basic ST-62 vintage series for only an extra 20 euro or so.

I'm a happy guitarist.

A lot of fun for a little money

Amazing value for money. Bought this becase a) I didn't own an S-type and b) wanted a modding project.

However, after a little work (see below), I ordered the Harley Benton DC kit and will leave the ST-62CC as it is for now. I'd be happy to gig with it. It's been tuned down a half-step for some SRV goodness, and I'm having fun!

· The action went WAY lower than the factory set-up. Neck relief was spot on, so very little effor required.

· Sales, support, packaging and delivery were excellent.

· Satin feel of the neck is really good.

· Tuners are way smoother than I had reason to expect. One's a little tight, other five are spot on.

· Frets needed polishing (fine, as I needed practise in doing so).

· Couple of tiny finish flaws, but unless only if you scrutinise it closely.

· Trem screws in the body cavity needed loosening a long way to make it usable (essentially came set up as a hard tail). Again it's a nice simple set-up task you can perform with the help of YouTube.

Excellent for the price

Pros

- Price

- Finish is excellent. I couldn't find any flaws in the paint on the body or neck.

- Neck finish is actually more of a satin so it's fast and smooth. When I looked at the pictures it looked more like a gloss.

- Sounds great (opinion of a beginner).

- Stays in tune better than my LTD H-51.

Cons

- Frets are rough so I'm going to have to polish them.

- A couple of the pickups were wonky but easy enough to straighten. Probably something that happened during shipping.

- Color isn't exactly as it appeared in the pictures when I ordered it. The current primary picture is a much more accurate representation of the true color.

Totally satisfied with it and would recommend it to anyone starting out.