Harley Benton ST-62MN SB Vintage Series 5-stars 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 :)

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...

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.