Harley Benton TE-20MN BM Standard Series 5-stars Reviews

Wow!!!

I cannot believe in this day and age, that so much quality can be obtained by so little outlay (including p+p around £85.00.) I own better but I've paid up to eight times more! I bought this guitar out of curiosity having watched many u tube assessments and thought I'd give it a whirl. Do yourself a favour and get one, you will NOT be disappointed.

How is this only $90?!

This little guitar is fantastic, put this thing head to head with a Squier Bullet or Affinity and it would win any day of the week. Keep in mind that since I had to wait for this guitar to restock, the one I received was most likely brand new stock. Your experience may differ depending on how long your guitar sits around in the warehouse. Out of the box this thing was setup completely. The action was great, the frets were level and polished, the neck was straight, and (most shocking of all) the fret ends were smooth . All I did was throw some D'addario 9's on there and pencil in the nut a little. Every bit of this guitar looks and feels great. Tuning stability isn't perfect, but it holds up well enough.

Despite the ceramic pickups, this thing sounds fairly crisp. The neck pickup has those bell like Tele tones and the bridge has a fair bit of that Tele twang.

Everything is done carefully, the sound is good! very thin and slightly rough frets! I think over time they will replace it with more standard ones! And so recommend!!!!

Harley Benton TE-20mn BM Стандартная сер&#10

Thanks! Very good guitar for its price. The package went 11 days. I will still order guitars!

Impressed Gigging Musician Here

Well, I purchased this guitar with the view reviewing this on YouTube and after being extremely impressed by this guitar after the review, I took it with me on the road. Words cannot describe how impressed I was with this guitar. 2x 2.5 hour gigs and now will be one of my gigging guitars.

Pros: - Lightweight, incredible value for money, well inspected, easy to play and pickups have a lot of punch to them.

Cons: - Tuning stability was not great but after a bit of string bending and playing the tuning was stable enough and the saddles do stick up a bit and dig into my hand.

All in all these issues can be dealt with very easily and at very little expense.

This guitar, I would highly recommend to any level of guitarist.

Gob Smacked!!

Absolutely delighted with this guitar. Originally, I was very nervous that I was going to receive a toy like, poor quality, unusable instrument, but I needn't have worried. The guitar is beautiful, well made and after lowering the action and replacing (as expected) the awful strings, It played and sounded great. My other guitars are a Schecter Omen Diamond Extreme and a 80's Squire Strat. but already I'm enjoy playing this guitar most. I have in the past owned a Fender Mexican Tele which I regretfully sold but this is more than a suitable replacement for me (a home player only) and I'm actually liking it as much, if not more than the Fender - just because the gamble of paying such a low price for a new guitar has paid off big time! I am so impressed with Harley Benton and their value for money that last night I ordered one their Les Pauls (SC 450 BK) and of course a decent set of strings - well, at these prices it would be rude not to - can't wait!

Wow

Came with a great setup out of the box, feels great, sounds great. Looks stunning too. Even the strings feel like brand new, unlike other HBs. Maybe I should buy another one...

The neck is slim, but I have small hands, so this is a plus for me personally. Could not be happier with this purchase.

Fantastic value..

Bought this out of curiosity really while I was waiting for my car to be serviced! I can honestly say this is fantastic value. After a little setting up, which it did need, this (extremely) budget guitar plays well and sounds great. The neck actually plays almost as well as my PRS! Now tempted by the more expensive Harley Bentons.......

Wish we had that 40 years ago

Oooookay,

so my Candy Apple Red and Metallic Blue TM20 arrived today. Outer cardboard box was slightly knackered, but inner boxes were okay, except for the styrofoam neck rests, who gave their structural integrity to protect the guitar inside.

No more plastic fillers, but only crushed paper, which I like. Try folded cardboard for the neck rests, you might get rid of those plastic pieces, too.

Have not received any goodies with the guitars, no stickers, no picks, nothing.

From the first looks, the guitars might even come from different factories. The metallic blue guitar is significantly heavier than the red guitar. Haven't had them on the scales - yet - but I'd say the difference is at least 1 kg.

Paintwork is more than acceptable. The blue is a tad lighter than expected, but the red one is that kind of deep "Oooh Yeah!" red that gives me an instant ... cough. Let's leave it there.

The blue one actually has a three ply scratchguard, so that's a pro. The chrome bridge looks better in reality than on the photos. I will check intonation and - yes, it's a Tele, you won't be able to intonate it properly - if it's okay, the chrome bridges may even stay.

Can't say anything about playability yet, as the guitars need to settle down a bit and adjust to the climate here, but so far I'm not disappointed.

Well, there are niggles, though. The neck for instance is cheap. Feels good, but it's not, what you would expect from a proper Tele neck. A maple fretboard Tele neck is hewn from one piece of maple, the truss is set in from the back, hence the prominent skunk stripe. With this neck, they just slapped a maple fretboard on. I know, it is possibly cheaper to use the same neck blanks for all of the HB Teles and then just use different fretboards, but, well, it's not THAT important, but I just noticed it.

Both guitars have a nice first feel. The neck is definitively NOT Tele,, it is wider and flatter than the usual Tele neck. Fret sprout is absent and the narrow thin frets are looking okay -n even though they are not polished. Switches and potentiometers feel solid. Tuners feel and look cheap, but they might do their job.

The red guitar has some issues with the strings not lining up properly, the strings are shifted about 2 mm to the bass side, but this might as well be dealt with by adjusting the bridge, there is enough travel there and then it might even align better with the pickups. The strings are not THAT far off, it's more a bit of a niggle.

Oh dear, the blue guitar REALLY is a heavy one. Don't want to wear that for a long gig ....

Both guitars fell off the production line and passed QC at the 15th of July 2019. Both were checked by Alan.

So, what is my verdict after just ogling over the new TE20 from Harley Benton?

Hardware is better than expected. Triple ply pickguards may stay. Chrome bridge is not too bad, but will be changed to a proper string-through-body part later. Not as soon as expected, but at a later stage.

Paintwork is as good as any Fender.Impressive.

I wish we had guitars of that quality at that price when I was younger. Now I'm in my mid 50's, but when I started guitars, we have had proper sh!t for ridiculous money, you have it good, you don't know how bad we've had it.

Am I happy? If the rest - playability, sound - is up to par, I could not be more happy. Buy the red one - the blue one is too heavy - help yourself to a 5-way super switch and some better pots, caps - without looking at those, they can't be good - and tuners, and you will have a modern Tele. Drop in some better pups if you have to and for way less than 200 €/£/$ you will have a fine, gigworthy instrument. If you ask me "Buy a TE20 HB, pimp it up and put the difference between that and a MiM into gear, lessons, beer?" my answer will always be "Fuck, yeah!"

I arrange and work as a session musician, for a long time I chose an inexpensive instrument for creating solos and rhythm of parts in daw. Just shocked by build quality and sound. The best guitar, very happy with the price! I advise everyone

Amazing for the price

I got it a few days ago, more out of curiosity than by real need.

I really wanted to know what the deal was with the famous Harley Benton everyone's talking about.

Now I understand : I'm astonished by the overall quality for the price.

For the objective part :

The fret job is perfect, the finish is wonderful and it's fully playable out of the box. It's a bit more heavy than expected, thought.

In a subjective way, now :

The guitar sound really good and the neck is amazing :')

10/10, would recommend.

Fantastic initial impression!

The guitar arrived this morning. I unpacked it, checked it over, tuned it, plugged it in and played for 10 minutes.

I bought a TE-30 a couple of years ago, for an Esquire/Bigsby project. Sadly the body on that was very heavy (asian ash), and I muffed the bridge/Bigsby alignment a bit so when I spotted the TE-20MN with the lovely metallic blue basswood body I had to have it to fix my project.

The body really does have a great finish. The neck is nicer than the TE-30 neck too - the C-profile feels a bit slimmer which I like a lot. No fret sprout and a nice rounded-off finish. Tuners are ok - not super smooth and precise but perfectly usable. Pickups and electronics all sound/feel great, especially given the price. The action was high, but that's easily fixable (maybe partly due to transport in wet, autumn conditions).

It's a beautiful guitar that's playable out of the box, at an absolute bargain price.

Docked a single star for features because, well, it's a T-style - they don't have fancy features and neither should they!

Amazing for the price

Baffled by the quality of this guitar for 80 euros.

Nice neck, no pokey frets.

Tuners work.

Finish looks amazing, can't find any visual flaws.

Surprisingly heavy for a basswood body, but in a good way.

I can't get over the finish quality for the price. It's better finished than the TE-70 deluxe model I owned.

Sounds like a tele, a little screechy on the bridge pickup, but overall very good.

Very playable guitar, action is nice and low.

I'm delighted and might spring for the CA red model also.