Harley Benton ST-62MN SB Vintage Series Reviews

The better Sstyle Harley Benton

I have the ST60.ST20 and the ST62 is the better model. The roasted maple neck is resonant, sturdy and finish of the guitars are spot clean. no hazy finish. Just needs a quick setup and its good to go. I would choose this over a MIM fender.

Amazing Guitar

Guitar is amazing, the pickups are good and sound is great. Only downside is the volume and tone knobs feel cheap plasticky but this isn't really a problem for me.

My very first Harley Benton - and I love it!

I watched a few reviews on HB guitars before ordering the ST-62MN SB. It arrived in about a week double boxed in a perfect condition with no visible flaws, and a surprisingly good setup. Tuners are firm and accurate, nut is plastic but nicely cut, bridge and tremolo are fine - so no tuning issues at all. The electronics are in good working order, the pickups are average but sound with a crystal clear (noiseless) chime as expected. The pick up selector and the volume/tone knobs all function as intended. The neck is superbly payable with a warm roasted look and a satin feel. This instrument sounds very nice through clean or dirty amp settings and it compares to more expensive brands. I gave it a five-star for the price, value and quality - and the fact that I will likely be shopping for other HB models in the future.

Quality way above price range

I own more than a couple dozen guitars and basses from 150 to around 2000 euros in price. I have fully upgraded and fine tuned about a dozen of them. So I am used to finding and fixing faults and doing set ups, including fret leveling.

This guitar is fully playable out of the box. It is amazing for the price.

The nut is correctly filed to give close to perfect notes on the first fret. I will not have to file this nut. Intonation is correctly adjusted.

No buzzing frets on any note with the factory action height. I have not lowered the action, yet, so I do not know how low it can go without buzzing.

Pots and switches work. No blemishes in the finish. Tuners work smoothly.

Fret ends protrude just enough to feel them but do not give any problems when playing. A careful light hone will take care of that.

Bridge pick up tone is very trebly! Middle and neck pickups sound balanced. The bridge pickup is closer to the strings so a height adjustment may tame it's tone.

EDIT: The excessive trebliness went away after a pickup height adjustment. Now all pickups give a balanced tone.

I have not tried the tremolo, yet.

I already have several Tele style Harley Bentons and am glad to find this Strat to be just as well made.

I have had to return a few other brand guitars in this price range that were unplayable and could not be fixed with adjustments. No such cases with about a half dozen Harley Bentons I have purchased.

Excellent value for money and a good working instrument regardless of price.

not worth the hype

i got it after 3 months from ordering it, in worst condition frets are sharp unplayable. i sat it up and it’s smooth now but i dont like the pickups especially the bridge, it’s too bright for me

THE KING OF AFFORDABLE STRATS

Well I wasn't expecting much for this price but I'm stunned at how good this guitar is. I've played better to be fair, but they cost many times the price of this one. Don't think for a minute that this is a "beginner guitar". It's just a really good guitar regardless of the cost. The new roasted maple neck is amazing to play on and I didn't need to do anything to the frets either. This is my 6th Harley Benton and by far the best to date.

I'd gig this guitar without any hesitation whatsoever, it feels and plays like a guitar that's five times the price. Don't hesitate, just get one.

Affordable homage to a classic

I bought this guitar last year. The overall build quality is good. The finish is applied well and the neck/body joint is solid. The neck is a bit thicker than I expected, but I got used to this quickly. The opportunity for improvement on my guitar were the frets. The tops of the frets needed to be polished as there was a gritty feel when bending strings. The fret ends were rough and sharp, requiring filing to cure the fret sprout. The tuners work and hold tune, but they are not as smooth as higher end tuners on my other guitars. Still, considering the price, this guitar is a very good value. It's a great way to try out an "S-style" guitar, as it was for me.

Terrible craftmanship but good sound (unfortunate)

This guitar was so bad I had to send it back. There was a twist in the neck, the intonation was off, the action was so high that it was barely playable (probably a cheap attempt to offset the twist in the neck and the terrible fret job), it needed much fret leveling, and went out of tune easily. Everything wrong you could imagine with a guitar.

After seeing the good reviews and how this guitar is advertised by those Harley benton send it to review on youtube, together with their own youtube channel, I was very dissapointed because the guitar actually sounds very good, but my product was completely unplayable without spending more than twice the money the guitar costs to get it fixed.

That is why I am giving it one star. If you're ordering this guitar, be very strict with how you want it setup and perhaps you will be given a better example than mine, but still be prepared to have to put atleast 2-3 hours of work or pay a luthier 200+ euros to get it fixed. Might aswell get a squier classic vibe from your local shop and know it is setup well.

Chic guitar for little money!

I really liked the guitar, the reality exceeded expectations. Excellent finish, nothing to complain about, practically. The sound is very close to the classic stratocaster. There are problems with the frets on the fretboard, they are a little prickly and they need to be polished, I will take the guitar to the master, but that's okay. In general, a great tool not only for a beginner, but for use in the studio or concerts.

A great starter guitar!

Having bought this guitar, i wasn’t expecting much. But was proven wrong. This guitar sounds AMAZING. I’d recommend this to everyone that has just started playing.

A fantastic budget strat

I bought this guitar and a few others to check out the Harley Benton brand. This is probably the best of the ones I bought. I did not expect a lot for the price that I payed for it and the guitar was way better than I hoped. I have owned the guitar over two and a half years now and I still feel extremely satisfied every time I pick it up.

This guitar is a great alternative to a bigger brand that creates a similar guitar. I had a few of them over the years and I will rate this one over the 3 Fender strats that I had who was made in Mexico. I will put it between the Mexico and Japan made when it comes to quality and sound.

When it comes to playability I really love the neck of this guitar. I have quite big hands and I often feel the guitar necks are just to small and skinny for me. This one got a proper neck with a c shape that fits my hands perfect. I would not recommend it to people with small hands but if you like a bit bigger necks I would try this one out.

The neck feels good and there is no sharp fret ends. The frets are also well leveled so there are not fret buzz anywhere on the neck, even with very low action.

The sound of this guitar is really nice. The alnico 5 pickups makes it sound like a strat should and in my opinion it is sounding at least as good (if not better) as the Mexico made Fender.

The tuners and hardware of the guitar does the job. I have blocked my trem system since I never use it, so I can't say anything about that part.

The tuners is not great quality, but the guitar stays in tune and that is good enough for me.

To sum it up I will say that this is in my opinion the best strat type guitar for the money. I usually keep my guitars for a year or two before I sell them on, but this one is not going anywhere. This one is a keeper!

The guitar is cool!! For your money, just super. At home, it works 100%. as many write, there were no problems with the frets. I arrived already configured))). Take it!!

amazing value

This is my second HB and it does not disappoint. All I needed to do was lower the action and for me its good enough. The finish is flawless, the pickups sound great, and it feels and plays like the real deal. Makes you want to buy another , at these prices how can you not. I highly recommend this HB for anyone at any level.

Excellent cheap Stratocaster style Guitar

Excellent guitar it have some pros and cons but its the best bang for buck guitar you can buy.

First some pros:

- Great finish there are no stains or blemishes on the paint or varnish

- Good sounding Rosewell pickups

- Stays in tune

- Plays very good after some setup

Cons:

- Machine heads are little bit hard but i think after some oiling will be good

- Frets are very scratchy and first thing to do with this guitar is to change strings and polish frets

- Whammy bar needs also adjusting to use tremolo

- Pickguard material is soft so after few minutes of playing had some scratches

After polishing frets and changing strings guitar plays excellently.

I was not expecting this!

Let me start off by saying that I'm a guitar snob. This guitar is beautiful in every way. That means I need to toss my outdated guitar axioms. This ST is great! I have been in bands since the early 70s, mostly as a bass player. I was expecting a Squire type ax that I could give away for a gift to a new player. After some minor setups this ST plays like the real thing. I polished the frets a bit, they were not bad. I replaced the string trees with rollers. I replaced the strings. Thats all. Perfect. The pickups sound fantastic, the pots & 5-way switch feel good. The finish is gorgeous. I went looking for anything that might be sloppy, nothing. I got the delivery 3 days after my order. Wow! I'm buying another one!

for beginners who want to set up Guitar

Very good guitar in this price range. As of now I don't have problem with my guitar. Highly recommended to those who love playing Stratocaster guitar.

My second HB guitar

Amateur player. Country Greece.

My check cleared 4/8, received the package 17/8, a little bit late for a European country.

Some external damage to the package but no internal to the goods delivered.

The guitar's color and finish are perfect, body wood selection not so great, 3 pieces glued together with many wood flaws obvious under the nice finish, pity, it could have been a perfect high end looking, sun burst Stratocaster.

Neck is very nice with level freds that need a little polishing TLC specially to the sides.

The guitar came more or less tuned, but with high action that was set very easy from the bridge adjustment. Nut plastic low quality, a bit off center it will be replaced with a good one and centered.

Tuners a bit stiff probably need some lubrication but they keep up.

Pick guard well set but after of just five minutes playing was full of scratches.

Selection switch nice and two tone knobs that function properly and deliver what they are supposed to deliver ie tone change.

The guitar plays nice feels and sounds nice as well, typical Stratocaster sound, according to its price range expectations and above.

Generally a pleasant experience, but being amazed from my other HB a fusion II Tele style with hum backers and splitting coils, kind I got disappointed or better said earthed.

It seems like higher price HB guitars offer a lot more and lower price HB's offer just more.

great guitars, a little heavy.

Great guitar for the money

Was the firstbHB guitar I've bought. Pleasantly surprised. A couple of high frets, and the intonation needed adjusting a little, but otherwise no complaints at this price. I sanded and waxed the neck a little to get it how I like it, and to remove some over painting of stain on the fret ends. Still absolutely playable without that though. Fretboard edges were even slightly rounded off which I absolutely didn't expect at this price.

Fine out of the box as a beginner, and with a bit of basic set up it sits happily with a decent Squier. If you spend a bit more effort on finishing the neck, changing tuners for locking type, it plays as well as any strat I've tried.

Soundwise it's stratty but obviously not custom shop level. No complaints though!

Overall a great value guitar that really shines if you spend the time on set up, but which is totally playable out of the box if that's what you prefer.

Recommended.

Good guitar, cheap though.