Harley Benton TE-20HH SBK Standard Series Reviews

Looks amazing. Sounds... like a $100 guitar.

The headline says it all. It really is cool looking tho, and a great project guitar. with how much you saved on this thing, you can afford the GOOD pickups for it. DO IT!!!

Very good for the price, nice sound

The build quality is good for the price. The sound as well is really good

Amazing value

This guitar arrived almost in tune,action was fine,intonation spot on. everyone comments about frets when reviewing a new guitar,(myself included).I have to say these frets were smooth,not scratchy , fret ends were rounded off with evidence of being filed correctly.Something you dont always find on a new guitar. The finish was great all over body and neck,tuners work as they should,holding tune well. all electrics function without drama. I changed the strings for daddarios and fitted gotoh string trees.Its well documented about harley benton value, trust me this guitar reinforces that statement.Get one.

tele very smooth and loving the action on this guitar!

for $100 us no brainer.I ordered another guitar with this one because the shipping cost are insane. The other guitar came damaged bit upset but its getting replaced but anyways this guitar has been nothing but fun and has distracted me from thinking about the damaged guitar. Anyways i highly recommend this guitar its beautiful for the price!

Nice!

Litle bit heavy,pickups hot.

For the price after setup it's ok!

This guitar is great

I love the sound, feel and weight of this guitar.

Another great HB that punches above its weight class.

The best low price telecaster i have , the guitar arrived in great condition all i had to do was 2 turns on the truss rod lower the action and it is fine .

I tried it through a Fender champion 20 amp louder than any other i have next its my Laney then my son will give it the full metal try out on his 60 watt tube amp . the neck is lovely and smooth im going to oil the fret board once the strings go out , the ones on are fine just needed stretching a bit . Im nearly 70 if you ask me if i had bought this 40 years ago paid £400 i would not have batted a eve lid plus you can mod easily if you want to with any pickup you like .

Better than expected but not perfect

I owned a Harley Benton bass ten years ago. That particular model (Harley Benton HBB200BK) has since been discontinued, which is probably a good thing. That was a purchase I regretted from the beginning. It was a terrible instrument and I soon switched to Fender's Mike Dirnt bass thereafter. I'm mentioning thist just to illustrate how sceptical I was, while waiting for the guitar to be delivered. I purchased it on a whim together with another guitar, since it was so cheap and looked a bit special. I also thought it would be interesting to see, how HB quality has developed.

Well then: the quality seems indeed to have improved. Decent playability out-of-the-box. Action is a bit too high for my liking, but since I’ll probably be using this for alternate tunings, it doesn’t really matter that much. For someone purchasing his/her first guitar, this may, however, be off-putting and a possible issue. The action can probably be adjusted, but in comparison to my other guitars, this is definitely a minus, if you don’t want to tinker.

Otherwise the build quality is surprisingly good. Everything works, tuners seem OK. Frets smooth and nice. Humbucker switch a bit stiff. Of course, nothing can be said about durability at this stage. And it’s not an eyesore either, if that’s important to you.

At this price point I can recommend this instrument, but maybe not as only/first guitar.

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!!

Stunning Guitar at a great price

Buying this guitar was the first time I'd ever seen an advert and thought "I'm having that" clicked on the link and pulled the trigger immediately with no hesitation. I'd seen loads of reviews about Harley Benton on YouTube so I figured it would be amazing right out of the box. It was. This guitar is so much better looking than the pictures suggest. It plays well and sounds absolutely amazing. Definitely money well spent. It may be my first HB but it definitely won't be the last.

love it

My 10th harley benton guitar and its now my go-to machine.

Stop thinking about it and just buy it. You will be very happy.

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.

amazing value guitar

This is my first Harley Benton after getting curious about the brand through various articles and reviews in Guitar World. I finally took the plunge and bought this. Admittedly it wasn't much of a plunge, as I had this guitar, VAT + postage for under £100. I absolutely would not believe this guitar came in at that price. I am already recommending the brand to my friends.

It was between this or the TE Black Burst with the reverse headstock, but the matte finish on this won out. It really is a beautiful guitar. My partner who takes little to no interest likes it, and tells me we could display it in the living room. Big praise, indeed.

How does it sound? Well, I wanted it to replace my 17 year-old John Wesley W, and did look at replacing it with a HB one, but found this and thought "why the hell not?" I've always liked the model this was based on, but I didn't want the single coil twang, and the big F's finishes don't really come close to how beautiful this colourway is.

You can't go wrong with this guitar. It sounds and looks great!!

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.

Great Rockin Tele

Overall great Tele for a beginning platform. Sounds great, feels great (some rough fret edges, but no deal breaker). It is a bit neck heavy with it leaning towards neck dives but very playable and ultimately gig worthy. Overall great deal for price paid, I would definitely recommend at this price point. Fat Bassey humbucker sounds with a C style neck.

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.

Insane price on a great guitar

First discovered Harley Benton because of an ad for this guitar and decided to pull the trigger. Neck feels really nice, few rough fret edges, but not bad by any means. Came pretty well set up out of the box. The pickups aren't the best thing, but, they sound good enough for now, especially for the price. Absolutely impressed by this thing and it's a no brainer to pick up. I may upgrade the pickups down the road, but that's not even for sure.

Great for players and modders

I bought this guitar mainly as my second mod project but also because I've always wanted a tele style guitar but never really liked the tele "twang".

It was packaged very well and, once unwrapped, I was pleasantly surprised by the build quality for the price.

It has a good weight to it and the satin black with the red tortoise shell scratch plate is even better than the pictures. The roseacer fretboard has a lovely grain on mine that really popped after I applied some lemon oil.

It has 2 Roswell humbuckers that sound great.

The routing for the controls and the pickups are clean, even better than some guitars 2 or 3 times the price.

The frets on mine did have some sharp edges and a couple were a bit scratchy but that is no problem for me as I really enjoy maintaining guitars (I urge every guitarist should learn basic set up skills. It really brings another level of pride over your instrument).

The tuners are ok but I always fit locking tuners on my guitars so,again not a problem. Also the nut is plastic and I don't like the metal string trees but the price of this guitar cancels any negative I find. I changed the nut and trees for graphtec and the only real problem I found is purely from a modding perspective. When I removed the nut, there was a huge amount of glue gun glue in the slot. This took a lot of careful filing to remove but that was a problem I made for myself for modding it.

Playability wise, this is an outstanding guitar. Even before I started tinkering, I couldn't put it down no matter what music style I was playing. For a guitar aimed more for a rock/metal player, it really is a versatile axe.

On the whole I highly recommend this. It's perfect for beginners and intermediate guitarists looking to extend their collection. It is also ideal for any budding modders looking to get started without fear of ruining more expensive kit (you can't ruin a t style's basic build and that's the joy of them). I am a very happy chappie indeed.

Great Workhorse!

Use for practice.. excellent build quality.. light ease to play.

Pros; Just a great guitar for the price! Good pick-ups, slim neck, sounds amazing! Cons: None

Great quality and price

I basically clicked buy as soon as I read about this. Had a soft spot for a Tele-style for years, and this hit the button.

Black, all-over satin finish is smooth, feels great and looks cool. No blemishes or missing areas, a really nice job.

Neck is thicker than I normally play but surprisingly comfortable. Rose-acre fretboard has pretty much the same texture as rosewood. No fret buzz or truss rod adjustment required and no intonation issues. Frets feel polished and no sharp edges. 10 gauge strings feel surprising lightweight in this configuration. The tuners are cheap but do the job. Selector switch is solid and knobs smooth.

Overall sound is quite dark. Neck humbucker is warm and thick, nice for blues tones as well as rock. Bridge humbucker is definitely darker voiced for this position. You will have to adjust EQ to get a brighter tone. However I did find it surprisingly responsive to pinched harmonics. It seems geared towards the lower tones, but doesn't sound flubby with distortion.

This is my first HB guitar (not counting a kit). The quality and playability out of the box for this price is incredible, I'm very pleased. If I was 15 again and my parents bought me this as a gift I could not be happier!