Harley Benton TE-20HH SBK Standard Series Reviews

Can’t beat for price

Wonderful value guitar, the looks are fantastic, the build quality is above what you’d expect for the price and although it’s not finished to a super high standard there’s none of the manufacturing errors and issues you’d expect at the price point. I’ll admit I swapped the tuners and pickups after my first week but that was always the plan. I use this as a backup guitar for live and as a lives downstairs guitar at home. It holds a range of tunings reasonably well and is pretty stable overall. I would and have recommended this to anyone who’s asked :)

best t style guitar

this T style guitar blew my head out its amazing for its price

Solid guitar for the money

My only complaint is an abnormally high fret. After setting the action and intonation and sanding the fret the guitar works perfectly. The pickups sound good with a decent preset in Amplitube 5.

Money well spent.

This thing played well out of the box. This guitar is straight to the point. Nothing fancy about it, which is what I like. The pickups are a little on the fuzzy side for me(a metal/hard rock player), but I can't even remotely complain about anything on this guitar given the price. The only thing I would do is replace the pickups. Tuners, bridge, and construction are solid!

Awesome guitar.other than the pickups but at this price.I can deal with it until I find what I’ll replace them with. Other than that it’s a nice guitar for the price.

Exceeded every expectation!

Like many, I'd heard of Harley Benton guitars and how they are supposed to be about the best value to price you can get. It wasn't hype. I own a number of other guitars, including a Fender strat and a Gibson Les Paul. But this guitar has become my go-to. I was expecting at least to have to do some tweaking and modification, but no.....the action was spot on, so was the intonation, it's literally been unbox, play, and nothing else needed. I'm definitely sold on Harley Bentons, will be purchasing another one soon!

Grounding Issues

This is a great looking guitar and feels great bit had a really loud whine when you’re playing it. I went to guitar shop and they were able to minimize the whine but it was still there. Otherwise it sounds great and shipping was fast.

After almost a year of use, I can say that the guitar is quite good. Powerful sensors, comfortable neck. High level quality control.

Great for starters

Bought this as a project guitar I could mess around with. I put in Harley Benton locking tuners, adjusted the bridge, put in a SD Invader on the bridge and painted the pickguard white and now it's worth has probably tripled. From the box it's a great sounding guitar, the playability is as close to perfection as you can get within the price range.

The best bang for your buck!

Built well, looks even better in person, and with the power rails pickups I installed, it became a sleeper metal monster! So happy with it!

Excellent rocking guitar.

Brilliant guitar for the money, great stealth looking finish.

Great value for money, poor quality control

The guitar is 99 euro and there should be no suprise when it comes to the quality of certain parts or maybe blemishes on the finish.

However, the pickup switch was soldered backwards, which would be unfortunate for someone who doesn't know their way around guitar electronics. Luckily, it was a quick fix.

Additionally, a couple of screws on the bridge were worn out, but that's not a big deal.

Neck and frets - I think I don't have to say anything, the guitar is 99 euro, you have to put a little bit of elbow grease in her.

To end on a lighter note - the pickups are superb and the overdrive/distortion you get is pure rock/metal.

Just up the quality control a bit.

Great for the price

It’s a fantastic age we live in that we can buy cool looking guitar with decent quality for this cheap. You must do your own set up or pay for a set up, the guitar is not playable without imo

Fanf***ingtastic

I love this guitar

It's beautifully made and set up, it has the classic Telecaster sound and look and for under £100 with shipping I really can't recommend it enough.

Ive already got my eye n my next purchase from these guys.

My first ever HB guitar. It is good(with a proper setup) as a first guitar, or really good as a mod-platform.

I would recommend it as a first guitar, but only IF*** whoever gets it takes it to a guitar tech before, as the setups on these are really hit or miss. Don't expect to get a 300 euro guitar for under 100 euros, cause you are not. It can become it, though :)

Problems mine had that needed fixing were:

- the plastic nut was awful, it snagged the strings quite a bit. swapped it to a Tusq nut as soon as I received the guitar.

- the frets were very scratchy and 2 frets were too high. - my tech polished them and fixed the height issue. At least there was no fret sprout out of the box, and none that developed in the last 2 years of owning it.

- the fretboard at the 22nd fret was damaged, like the neck was smashed into something before it was installed on the guitar. Luckily my tech was able to sand it a bit and make it smooth. No playability issue though.

- the fretboard itself needed a wash with soap and water, as it would leave black residue on your fingers after a bit of playing. I guess roasting any type of wood (Roseacer is thermally treated maple) would leave soot on it. Surprised they didn't clean it at the factory.

Other mods I did that really transformed the guitar, in my opinion:

- the pickups were fine, just too bright for my taste, so I swapped them with probuckers I had lying around. IT SOUNDS MASSIVE NOW.

- the pickup cut-out on the DLX TE bridge was not big enough to install other pickups, especially ones with an enclosure. my tech had to use a file and get a bit of material out before installing the new pickups. Which is fine, a high quality Babicz bridge costs as much as this guitar costs.

- the DLX Diecast tuners are fine, just too vague and not very accurate. you need to go up and down when tuning till you get it close enough. These will be swapped out at some point.

- the string trees were kind of cheap and snagged the strings, so I changed them to roller string trees instead. this and the tusq nut helped out immensely.

- the website says you get 10-46 strings, but mine showed up with 9-42. easy fix, I always swap string on a new guitar anyway.

I will continue to buy HB guitars, as I think they can be exceptional with a bit of TLC and some upgrades, for a fraction of the cost of other guitar brands.

Great guitar for a great price

I added this guitar to my collection which includes a 1955 Les Paul, and a BC Rich Eagle made in the original shop. No need to hot rod the TE 20HH, it sounds great as it is. I'm using it mainly in my studio.

A true 5/5

Great guitar all around right out of the box. Very well made instrument for the price of $88 US… insane. I will most definitely be buying more from HB.

-Cheers

Are you serious!

C'mon. For 88 bucks this guitar is a steal. First off it's beautiful and well made. Might need minor adjustments but man i'm very pleased.

great for the price

the guitar is great, especially for those in a budget price range/beginners. minor issues lack in intonation and guitar set up which can be fixed at a local setup shop.

Literally one of my favorite Guitars...

So long story short, this has become one of my favorite guitars. Surprisingly good out of the box and definitely hits above the mark. I've modded this thing into a complete monster...

I've swapped the pick guard, the pickups and the tuners... It's become everything I could have wanted at under $300... Fantastic buy!