Harley Benton TE-20HH SBK Standard Series 4-stars Reviews

Good for its cost

Pretty good guitar, but the neck required adjusting and frets required equalising.

But overall quality is quiet good.

What? For 100?

I bought an MN tele that i use as my main guitar and i also have an epiphone les Paul studio. I was looking for a guitar with HH to use for alternative tunings and stumbled upon this… it looks great! This black matte colour is excellent (although i think it “masks” the lower-quality materials).

However, i think it’s great for a first guitar or for a backup

Great for the money

Sound is awesome. Played through an Orange Crush. Had to adjust the action but once I did it plays amazing!!

inexpensive telecaster

Most likely the telecaster is not my guitars at all, so the opinion is subjective. I'm just uncomfortable playing. But there are some minor flaws, the frets are not polished. For some reason the tuning heads are too close, I think it's because of the small neck. For a beginner guitarist, I would recommend.

Decent beginner T HH guitar

In brief

Looks: very nice. Matt black is very eye catching

Quality: Apart from some minor pokey frets generally very good

Sounds: Not bad. A little muddy and lacking in range but remember the price

Tuning: ok, the tuners do what you would expect for the money, reasonable accuracy, a little play and overshoot, but nothing major.

Overall, a very decent beginner guitar for the money. Don't expect 'magic for the price but with a few upgrades it could be a very decent guitar

Michael Campos

Everything received in good order in my office - Chile.

thanks! Excellent service!

A Sleek Style Tele for an Affordable Price

The Harley Benton TE-20HH is a full matte black telecaster with two passive humbuckers.

For less than £100, this telecaster makes a nice edition to the collection. The build quality of the body and neck won’t be as perfect as any custom fender guitar, but it’s also leagues better than any off brand guitar for a similar price. It find that nice balance in between, with the body of the guitar being nicely contoured and finished. My only gripe would be with at neck. The whole neck and fingerboard has also been painted in the matte black finish. While the smooth finish on the back of the neck is quite nice, I found the fingerboard to be a bit harder to work with, as the paint covers the natural feel of the wood, and is harder for me to play. This doesn’t couple well with some rougher frets, although still playable and fine.

The humbuckers are my least favourite thing on the guitar, as a guitarist who focuses on distortion and metal. When put through high gains and distortion, the humbuckers become more fuzzy and static making it harsher sounding in more of a negative way, but some people may prefer this, and it’s not as bad when playing chord progression. However, if you want to use the guitar through clean settings then it’s pretty good. Because the humbuckers remain simple, then so do the clean sounds. This creates a gentle sound not akin to traditional tele pickups, but still nice nonetheless. If you want to sound good like this, then a pinch of reverb, delay and chorus works perfectly. (If your amp or pedals can do that)

But now for the other more individual reasons I myself like the guitar. Firstly while I don’t like the painted fretboard, I do absolutely adore matte black finish guitars with a minimalist design. The guitar in person looks just as good as it does in the review videos online, and it matches my personal style, similar to that of my Ibanez grg121dx. The matte finish can also be customised if you have an artistic mind, which was one of the reasons I thought about picking up this guitar, because this also moves into the second reason why I like it. It’s a good project guitar. Double humbuckers connected to one volume and tone pot with a five way selector switch are easy to switch out if you want. The hardware such as the bridge, machine heads and pickguard can all be switched out if you have the right parts and want to upgrade. Therefore, this makes the guitar good for either stripping down and rebuilding to test, or to even upgrade as you go. Especially for the low price cost, which is honestly great for what you get.

Overall, I believe for the low price point I would recommend this guitar if it’s your style and you like the initial impressions of it as it is reliable and cheap, while also playing and looking nice.

Perfect for project and tinkering

Remember, this is under 90 Euros. Do not expect like a Squier Classic Vibe series. If you are someone who loves to customize a telecaster, this is definitely the guitar for you. The matte finish is stunning complimented with the pickguard. The frets do not need any work. At least the one I received. Polished and no fret buzz. My suggestion for upgrades in order of priority is 1) Nut and strings. 2) Pickups. Really, the pots and hardware is optional. I play mostly clean and low gain so I do not really need 500K pots.

Pickups are too hot, but great feel

When it arrived the neck looked like a banana, but after a proper setup it plays great, although both pickups are incredibly hot and almost unusable clean. However the build quality is great and I can see it as a fantastic base for a mod project.

Nice!

Litle bit heavy,pickups hot.

For the price after setup it's ok!

Great Guitar

Great guitar, especially for the cost. Love the look, it feels and plays great, although it really needed to be setup... which can't be critized, as you'd expect that with any guitar, regardless of the price.

It sounds really fat, cleans up nicely too.

I'd buy another, for sure!!

Solid budget guitar, perfect for modding

Nice guitar, perfect to mod to your own spec. better than buying a kit build. its surprisingly heavy too. im looking forward to modding this with some new tuners and putting copper tape in the cavity.

First HB, many to come.

I grabbed this thing on a whim off of a Facebook ad. Looked good, price was right, and figured the hell with it, why not. Honestly couldn't ask for a better entry into the HB family. The frets are level and smooth, no burrs than I can feel. Action is great, very run of the mill, but very playable. Build quality and attention to detail is way out of its weight class. This thing feels and plays 5x its' cost, I honestly feel like I stole it. Get one or a couple, you won't be disappointed.

Very good for the price

looks fantastic, plays great, unbeatable for the price.

nice sounding Roswell pickups, no noise on switches or pots,

some of the fret ends were a bit rough but easily sorted with a quick file, set up well, mid action, good intonation, no adjustment of truss rod or bridge needed.

Upgraded tuners to the Harley benton locking tuners which fit perfectly.

If you wanted to put active pickups in they wouldent fit with the covers on as the cut outs in the bridge is slightly too small but could be adapted, there is room underneath the control plate for a battery.

Overall no complaints at all, much better than I expected for the price.