Harley Benton TE-20MN CA Standard Series 4-stars Reviews

A great guitar for moding

Bought this as a moding patient and overall the guitar is great. Sounded nice without need to change anything and came intonated however middle position on the switch didnt work

Good value Tele clone

This guitar is good value for a player who doesn't mind spending a few hours setting it up. Out of the box the fret ends were sharp, the action was a bit high, the intonation was a bit off and the strings were slightly rusty. I recrowned the frets, polished them and took off the sharp ends. Lowered the action at the bridge saddles, put on a decent set of strings and intonated them. Once set up the guitar plays well. The neck is straight and the truss rod did not need adjusting. The tuners are budget but work smoothly and the guitar stays in tune. The tone is not bad with the twangy Tele vibes we all like. The finish of the body is great - very pretty cherry red metallic with no blemishes. Pots are smooth with no crackles. Knobs are solid chromed metal. 3-way switch works fine. I like this guitar and am having a lot of fun with it but corners have to be cut in order to keep the price down. In this case, the frets need quite some work. The setting up is not difficult - you just need a triangular file, some masking tape, a few grades of fine sandpaper and a few YouTube videos - all part of the fun!

Amazing simple guitar or mod platform

I bought this to mod extensively but was amazed at what you get for the price.

Electronics are cheap but functional. Bridge pickup is actually pretty good as-is.

There were a couple of expected flaws: the fret ends were a bit sharp, I had to file them. The control plate didn't align perfectly with the cavity, I'll have to fix that.

What surprised me most is the profile and feel of the neck. It's like a very soft V, not very chunky, and with nicely beveled edges fretboard edges. It's so comfortable and silky.

For the price point it's a great instrument. Especially if you are a beginner and you don't wanna spend much is a good choice.

In terms of looks it is a beautiful guitar, the color looks really nice.

As a telecaster with single coil pickups is a little noisy when you add distortion, so if you want to achieve heavier sounds maybe this is not the right instrument.

Bargain T style guitar

Absolutely stunning looking guitar. Feels and plays far better than it should at this price.

It's good

I don't know if I got lucky, but the built quality was great. The pickups are not good. Muddy and miss harmonics. For the price I can't complain.

Harley Benton TE-20MN CA Quality

Just received in london today. The guitar is beautiful, I really like the neck, body, micro of guitar. Only 1 negative thing is : the frets very bad quality.

I just need to polish my frets with 1500, 2000, 3000 papers it will be fine.

Shockingly Good

I've been playing for a while now and I'm a bit of a collector of cheap guitars (I have some nicer ones too such as a PRS SE). I wanted a tele to add to my collection.

Make no mistake, this is a cheap guitar. The tuning posts are somewhat loose, the fretts need a polish and the frett ends are of a mixed finish as you work your way up the neck.

THIS BEING SAID. If you are a beginner, the setup out of the box was really nice. The neck feels a bit wider to me than other teles, and I find its low finish/unfinished nature quite easy to play on/fast compared to laquered necks.

IF YOU'VE BEEN PLAYING FOR A WHILE - buy some cheap fine steel wool, some fret guards and your favourite pack of strings. Spend an hour or two polishing the frets. Raise the pickup height. Congratulations, you've got yourself a guitar which plays absolutely beautifully for this price point.

I will say the pickups seem fairly low output and I'll consider replacing them down the line. To be honest though, it doesn't matter. It still sounds nice when you crank the amp. For the price, something has to give somewhere.

Way nicer feeling, playing and sounding than Squiers which cost more than twice as much. I won't give it 5 stars because at the end of the day it's a cheap guitar, but it seems you get way more than you pay for here and I am extremely impressed.

A tired cliche but this little Tele punches well above it's weight

Bought this as a throw in with another guitar to save some shipping costs. I'd read the reviews and watched the You Tube demos and had to give it a try to see if it lived up to the hype. It did not disappoint.

If you can play you can make most anything sound good and if you can't nothing is going to make you sound good. I can play a little and was more than pleasantly surprised with this little gem.

Like most Harley Bentons, a great value for what you pay. This would be an ideal intro guitar for a beginner and is more than serviceable for a more seasoned player as well as a terrific platform for any aspiring modder. Also the candy apple red with white pick guard makes for a very nice looking guitar.

Great guitar, for it price

It loocks gorgeous, sounds, for it price, diecent, fells good. It have some issues, like biting frets and bridge buzz, but its not too bad. I can recommend!)

Looks really nice

Bought this guitar mainly for the looks. I must say the neck feels great and very nice to play. The pickups are not special in any way, whish they were a bit brighter, if this are changed you would get a really nice guitar for the price with a very comfortable neck. I was also surprised how well stays in tune. Overall I recommend this guitar, looks very good.

Amazing for the price, but...

Well, it's probably a random problem, but mine came with a double in thickness fret on the 13th spot, actually making it impossible to play (11th, 12th and 13th fret sounded the same on every string, because strings would touch the 13th fret).

OK, surely it is something that can be fixed, but with its cost.

Otherwise, a pretty good guitar especially for the price.

After resolving this issue, it plays pretty ok.

tele everyone it’s great!

Wasn’t expecting too much from such a low priced guitar but I was pleasantly surprised. As usual for Harley Benton the finish is superb. There’s a good range of tones and the action is great!

I bought this as an inexpensive knock-around guitar. I can't believe how good it is for the money! I can actually use this on stage! I wish it had strings through the body like the much more expensive T-Style guitars, but I'm not going to complain for the price.

How do they do it at this price !

I wanted a cheap Telecaster style guitar to complement my collection but without spending a fortune as it was only for house practice. I was sceptical about this guitar for the price, but, gulped, took a deep breath and ordered it. I can say that I was amazed when it arrived. The colour, the finish, the look, all good. The finish, while not in the same league as a guitar you would spend £1000 on, was excellent. No sharp fret ends, no blemishes in the candy apple finish, nicely finished satin neck. It just looked the part. Playability out of the box was 8/9 out of 10. I would definitely change the strings as the ones it arrives with are a little like a transatlantic telephone cable in diameter. Sounds great through a Zoom G1 four. The clean tones are there and nice, and when driven, it sound good. For the price, you certainly cannot argue. Great value for money if you don't want to spend an arm and a leg. Don't worry about the low price, it's a good buy.

Good for the price, but...

I ordered this as well as a TE-90FLT VW Deluxe.

Pros, neck feels nice, finish on body is great.

Cons, tuners and control knobs feel cheap. What look like metal volume and tone knobs, are just plastic and feel like it. Tuners have sloppy shafts, a couple of them bind a bit. Neck is quite rough at the end facing the pickups. The TE-90FLT VW Deluxe neck is much more finished at the end.

If you’re looking for a quality T style, this isn’t it, but for the money, it’s not bad. I have another bridge and tuners, so it’s going to get an upgrade. That said, I think it’s better value to go to the Deluxe as the quality is just a bit better. Still the same cheap plastic knobs though.

Its okay, but this neck....

I bought this guitar as a spare for practicing at a second residence. It feels and weights as a real tele. Looks that the construction is good and I couldn't see any flaw. Sound is average but very usuable. It stays in tune. I will take it to rehearsals for sure. The only thing I don't like is the feeling on the neck. Thickness is ok for me but the feeling when fretting is something you must get used to. It is in this area where the guitar really shows its price point

very good beginner guitar

This is a very good guitar for when you just started to learn the guitar. For this price the quality is amazing. I bought this guitar to be able to recommend it to my students and in my opinion there is no better guitar at this price.

Pretty cool

The only downside for the price is the sound, but the rest of the guitar is quite good. If you use aluminum tape to isolate the electronics improves a bit, but I purchased it with the idea to switch the pickups with the Brae Nuckle Boot Camp and I'm very happy I made that choice. I've built a great guitar for less than 250 €.

Excellent for the price

This thing really shocked me as to how smooth and well built it is for the price. If you change the bridge and pickups you have a guitar that rivals any Mexican Fender and others like it.