Harley Benton ST-62MN SB Vintage Series Reviews

Solid base for modding

Unbelievably great quality for the money. Excellent out of the box but with a few mods this becomes a truly fantastic custom guitar. Body, slightly chunky neck and electronics all great! However, I'm a rock player so I screwed down the trem, added tusq string trees, changed the tuners (Vanson) , added a tusq nut and a hot rail bridge pickup (£9 from Amazon) along with a solid brass trem block and saddles. Total additional additional cost about £40. Also changed the white pickguard for a mirror version...Looks awesome!

I own 14 guitars including Gibson LP Standard, Ibanez PR1660, Tokai VC75 Jackson SLSMG and Line 6 700.... Honestly the HB ST-62 gives me as much pleasure to play as my other high spec high cost guitars! PS: The Harley Benton TE-40 is another gem of a guitar!

PPS: Now awaiting delivery of my new Harley Benton Extreme 84... Can't wait :)

It's a decent guitar for beginners .

Nothing special , but a well made and playable guitar. It's very good for beginners. I've played fingerstyle on expensive acoustic guitars and this is my first electric. It doesn't feel as expensive as my acoustic and there is no such pleasure as feeling an expensive instrument. But for the price it's very well made.

Good To Go Out Of The Box

I read good reviews and this is a great review.I just took it out and just used some wd40 to lube the strings and neck/frets/fretboard etc and took off for 2 hrs on an awesome instrument.Tuned easily and was actually in damn near perfect tune allready by an inpector card guy named mike.Figured I would fine tune adjust stuff later and all that.Ok neck and fretboard was like butter and played smooth and low and Roswell pickups sounded just as good as some top name pickups almost.I could write about the good forever of this guitar.I will sum it up now.

Harley Benton keep doing what you are doing and do not get lazy or easy and stay hungry.This guitar is better than Squiers and as good as the squier deluxe if not better in some ways and almost a total Fender Strat.

For this price you will not find a better guitar or strat style that I know of.Thank you and all of that !

i didn't think i would be wowed,but i was,

For 15 years i worked in a music store setting up used guitars and new ones right out of the box like this one.I had done my homework and zoomed in on all the picture details,and read all the reviews about how people got there guitars out of the box almost in tune. Mine was in tune.i had my amp already on and waiting. So out of the box, a 15 second lookover and boom. I got some insane Hendrixy feed back swells that were so inspiering.i play rock/blues/ hippy stuff, with lots of controlled feedback.the neck was perfect,the whole set up was perfect.you could tell the strings were still brand new and fresh.and the pickups work great for if you wanna go Hendrix crazy. the bridge pick up really kicks it over the top for screaming licks with tons of harmonics.and the pickups are pretty quiet for single coils. i dont play through anything fancy,some distortion,reverb,a wha pedal,and crank volume up till you have to wrestle the guitar to the ground to controll the beautiful feedback swells and notes.its a really solid guitar,The sunburst finish on mine made me laugh cause it looks exactly like the japanese sunburst on my first guitar in 1977. Very 70's. i must have got a good one. I just ordered two more Harley Bentons. A lemon drop, flame top semi -hollowbody, and a set neck sg. I can't wait.these are cool.And even i can afford one. That's somethin .

Harley Benton ST-62MN SB Vintage Series

I am reviewing the guitar after having owned it for more than 1 year. I initially purchased the guitar as I wanted a strat with single coils. I wanted to experiment a little bit with the sound as all of my other guitars had humbuckers.

When I received the guitar, I was immediately impressed with its finish. For a 100 Euro guitar, the finish is amazing and after having owned the guitar for more than 1 year, I have no complaints about its look.

The pickguard looked nice at first but after months of playing, I found out that it is covered with some sort of plastic. I play with my pinky finger on the pickguard for stability - this area is now quite rough and does not look great.

The fretboard felt a little bit wide at first at first as most of my guitars were shredder guitars, but I got used to it after some time. Pickups sound great and I have no complaints.

Overall it's a great guitar for 100 Euro, I would have expected to have issues with it but I didn't. For the price that I paid for, I can say that I got a real decent guitar with no issues except for some minor cosmetic flaws.

Lots of guitar for very low price!!

This is my second HB strat and it as good as the first one.

It's great looking and it sounds the biz with the Roswell pickups.

After a setup it plays like a dream and it's stays in tune very well.

The guitar is light, with a very good sustain and is responding very well !

This guitar is on par with strats that are 8 times it's price....I

I had much confidence in this HB brand, so along with this guitar, I bought my third HB strat at the same time!!

That one is even sounding beter!

I have in mind already a fourth HB strat.....

That will bring my total of 5 HB guitars, and I'll will buy more in the future...

True phisically fat strat.

I ordered this guitar for my bro. He starting to learn an electric guitar.

Instrument makes a good impression. Very beautiful sunburst and glossy vintage honey finish on the neck. Edges of the frets are hidden and do not scratch hands. The guitar sounds very good, if all works ok (see note 4). ;)

There are several important notes.

1. Neck and body seems a bit larger than classic strat. In fact this is true phisically fat ST-guitar! ;)

2. Kluson-style tuners works well and keep tuning stable. And wow, shafts are splitted. But holes in shafts are not deep enough and looks too wide. There may be problems when installing thin strings. 1st and 2nd strings may fall out.

3. Jack was not tightened well - I had to tighten it.

4. At the first plug in, the sound was frankly bad and the same in different switch positions - there was a short circuit in the electronics. I fixed it in a couple of minutes, but it took me to take off the pickguard. And now guitar sounds like a classic strat.

5. D'Addario strings... Ok, but why they are rusty? Immediately changed them to Harley Benton Value set.

6. Frets require polishing. They are very rough. Strings are sounds like something scraping on the bends.

7. Pickguard screws are larger than holes and some are screwed not perpendicular. It's traditional feature for cheap guitar's. ;)

Exactly it's very good choice for beginners and very good emergency device for owner of high-priced guitar. Especially when minor bugs are fixed.

It's alright.

So - for 100 GBP allows you to buy a strat with pickups that aren't trash and a tremolo. Even the pickups are staggered.

Pros

-Mirror-like finish

-Staggered pickups

-Pickups are decent

-Everything works as it should

-Vintage tuners

Cons

-Sustain block is thin

-Tuners aren't the best

-Cellophane gets stuck between pickup and pick guard

-Tremolo was set weird

The guitar came with a set-up already, so it was pretty much ready to go. It was practically already in tune, although, I would recommend replacing the strings, as they might be a bit dirty/rusty. It was clean, the frets were polished and everything. The tuners sometimes "slip" and let my B string go loose. It's easy to re-tune but often has me re-doing takes. Since the strings are already on it, it's weird getting the cellophane off of the guitar itself. Might have to take the pickguard off if I wanted to get the rest. The tremolo is set so that it drops, but can't do the opposite, so you're stuck with diving (unless you fix it yourself).

Over-all, it's alright. I've definitely encountered many worse guitars at this pricepoint and you'd be hard pressed to find something better at this price.

I must have had a bad one.

OK What can one expect for such a cheap guitar, but I guess I was drawn in by the other reviews.

I clearly had one that was defective. So this part hopefully won't affect most people: Two of the tuners were simply unusable to get the guitar in perfect tune. So I returned the guitar. This was the main problem. The tuners seem to be the weak point on this instrument.

Overall as a matter of opinion:

1. The finish and joining on the guitar is every bit as good as everyone says it to be. Visually it's perfect.

2 . The pickups sound fine, although the tone controls didn't seem to affect the sound at all. Could have been another fault, but I didn't dig too deeply.

3. I found the intonation to be difficult to set on the low E and A string above the twelfth fret, but again I didn't go too far because of the problem with the tuners.

4. The neck is way too fat for my taste. Will doubtless appeal to others though. Otherwise the frets were nicely rounded, smooth and level. Played just fine, although as usual the factory setup was a very high action.

I think that if you get a good one and you like a thicker neck, this is indeed a bargain, but I was unlucky.

Brilliant

This guitar is just amazing for the price. It's my second Harley Benton and having owned Mexican, Japanese and USA Strats as well as Korean and Chinese built Squiers I can honestly say this is an absolute bargain. In terms of quality I'd say its up there with Mexican strats or the classic vibe Squier strats so for just shy of £109 including shipping within three days it almost makes no sense. My only gripe (and by no means enough to knock a star off the rating) is the wilkinson logos on the pickup covers which I really wish weren't there. They spoil the overall look slightly. Everything else is spot on.

Baffling quality for the fraction of the cost

I bought this guitar almost on a whim: saw a couple of very favorable reviews, etc, needed a strat for recording purposes, finally got this, was very low on funds. I have been playing guitar for over 10 years as a band member, as a session player, etc, had my fair share of expensive stuff, at this time just happened to need a strat relatively quickly, and only had a tele and a les paul, which didn't fit the job. Was I surprised.. First of all, the guitar was in tune right out the box (albeit the slightly sharp high E string). The finish looks great, way better than on the photos. The guitar itself is pretty light, just about right for a strat. The neck is, well, not too slim, but not too fat as well, feels like a MIM Fender strat neck, almost identical. Freatboard finish is spectacular, no blemishes, high polish and all. Now the good stuff. I was worried about bad frets/warped neck/electronics/tremolo. None of these things are bad in any way. All it needs is a proper set up (And what I mean by that is , obviously everyone likes a certain set up for a guitar, so it can't be perfect for everyone, I like a floating bridge, a two spring setup, angled claw and so on), after that, it plays like a dream. The pickpus are nice, jangly, just as a strat should be. You'd have to be insane to complain about this guitar, would recommend to anyone looking for a decent strat. Only thing that it needs is a setup according to personal specifications, after that, it's a spectacular piece of equipment. (P.S - When set up right, ya can dive bomb it for a half an hour and it doesn't go out of tune, I was quite pleasantly surprised).

UPDATE:

Okay, it has SOME issues, of which ALL are fixable without much hassle. The issues that mine has are - some frets aren't fully set into the fretboard, which makes them stick out just that much, AND makes some strings at two or three positions buzz. While this is a very low maintenance job, it's still a little annoying, as everything else works perfectly (well, change the string trees, unless You never bend. then again, every strat with non-roller string trees has this problem.) and this seems as such a silly thing to miss. I've carefully set the frets fully into the neck, and now it plays great, but just a word of warning - when buying this, I mean, even with these issues, it's still a complete steal! Sounds great, the tremolo works fine, the finish is fantastic, the neck is comfortable and smooth, even the electronics are absolutely fine.

UPDATE No.2:

I've had it now for four years, so here's my recap. Everything is still working, the neck has been sanded down to a silkier feel, the wiring was resoldered to a different configuration, but as it stands it is still fully original and in working order. It survived gigging, bad conditions, etc. The only thing that went wrong with it is the tremolo arm - it broke off inside, due to me abusing (aka diving till I hit the scratchplate) it all the time during a certain song. (YES it keeps tune if You set it up properly, did it during live shows!) That and the ruined thread of the trem block is sad news, but having in mind my somewhat violent playing, I guess it was to be expected. Even so, it broke only recently, so it was able to whitstand three and a half years of abuse. Overall - fantastic guitar, worth every penny.

Nice Strat copy

This is the second ST62 I've owned. The other was the vintage sunburst with rosewood fretboard. this model has the maple fretboard.

My review is based on a comparison with the rosewood version and with some other lower end strats I've owned.

The Good

good strings

good finish (no sharp frets, very small insignificant scratches in the finish)

Sounds good although to my ear the bridge pickup is a little "tinny" or brittle, maybe a little too bright. Neck pickup is really nice.

The bad

Not really bad as such. Some HBs seem like guitars that are worth three times the price. This one is more like a 200 euro guitar. It's still really good. Maybe just a variation issue, maybe completely subjective but I think I prefer the rosewood fretboard version. It just seems to have slightly more finesse

4 stars

really really good!

This thing is great!

I gave my four star rating for quality without considering the cost. For the price, it's way better than it should be.

I was expecting a budget guitar, and would have been very happy with that, but this is a really nice guitar. I have a Fender American Strat, an Ibanez strat-style, and a very cheap Chinese strat-style, and this one better than all but the Fender. And it's not far off the Fender. If it came with a better fret job, I'd call them even.

Looking at the pictures on-line, I guessed that the body had a veneered top, but it isn't, it's solid ash, or something similar. It's not too heavy, but it's definitely hardwood. The sunburst is just like it looks online, and the surface is perfect. Shiny and smooth. There aren't any flaws that I can find anywhere. All the woodworking is spot-on. There are no fitting gaps or blemishes. The neck is aligned and seated tight.

The neck is thick, and the fretboard is wide for a strat. The frets are fairly big. The tuners work well and feel smooth. The nut is cut well, needing no adjustment.

The setup was pretty good out of the box. I put half a turn on the truss rod, lowered all the bridge saddles about 1/2mm and set the intonation on a couple of the strings, but otherwise nothing at all was needed. The fretwork is good, not great, nothing that needs fixing.

It sounds good! Very middle of the road in terms of tonality. Not too weak, not too hot. It pretty much sounds like a '62-ish fender, which makes sense, given the model number.

Overall, this guitar exceeded what I expected in every aspect. I'm really amazed. With some slightly better tuners and a bridge, and a better fret job, this guitar would be the equal of any guitar.