Harley Benton TE-25TH Firemist

Beautiful guitar

Love this guitar...there is no other that looks like it....so glad I waited for it.

Great guitar

Waited 8 weeks for stock- glad I did

I'm a home player, intermediate level, don't gig and I have entry level amps.

Mostly these are my observations and comparion to other HB guitars I own or have owned.

Compared to the TE-62 and TE-52

Sounds:- can't really tell a difference- pups are the same, maybe with better ears and amps you could tell

Weight:- A shade lighter than the TE-52 and slightly heavier then the TE-62 but this will vary depending on what you get

Hardware:- Significantly better quality. Bridge is solid, brass saddles look better (but this is subjective), don't know if they make any sonic difference. Tuners are solid and precise and better than the other Ts.

Frets:- No sharps, comfortable playing, no choking of notes. They will need a light polishing.

Neck:- Looks amazing and a very comfortable play, the hand glides on it.

Finish:- Looks great, slight copper tint as others have noted. Negligible imperfections.

Gig bag:- Solid, good quality, good padding

Would be nice to see some of these features, Stainless Steel frets, tuners, bridge on similarly priced HB T guitars in some of the amazing colours offered by the TE-62

Max bang for the buck

the overall quality of the instrument is spectacular, no dings and nothing. The only real complaint would be the pickups are somewhat uninspiring but it is very usable with a proper setup.

I know I had pretty high expectations but

This guitar is far better than I had hoped.

The tone- the Tone...

The finish is darker in person and far better looking.

The neck is just stunning to look at and amazing to play

The box had seen some rough stuff during shipping but the guitar was perfect inside the box and is perfectly setup, just needed a quick tune and it was singing.

I only wish I had gotten all of the anniversary models.

Love the TE-25th, Only had a couple of issues and hoping easy resolution

Playability is great, love the tele style

Great guitar

Hard to beat for the money. Sounds and plays like guitars that would cost $1000.

Great value and worth buying

Such a good T style guitar with great components - plays really well and apart from a couple of minor items (control plate not exactly straight, action needed lowering for me) I strongly recommend

Absolute steal

Such a great instrument for the money

Bought as project guitar, didn't end up needing to do much

My plan was to buy this, put some work into it and then hopefully get a decent instrument for students. But it turned out to be really great on its own. I made a couple modifications: thinned the neck out a bit and added a coat of modified tung oil, smoothed the fret edges. Aside from the fret edges though, it was mostly personal preference stuff, I easily could have left it as is.

I own a Fender Am. Pro II Tele and you'd be surprised how close this guitar feels to that in terms of quality.

In terms of pick-ups, I have a set of Lollars I planned on putting in this but I may not even end up doing that because the stock pick ups actually sound solid, I even think the Alnico-5's with the alder body give better sustain than some other Tele's I've played. Gig bag is good too, better padding and storage than a standard gig-bag.

All in all, when I got this I hoped it could turn it into a decent guitar, turns out it was a pretty great guitar from the start and with a little work I can actually make it an awesome guitar. Can't get much better at this price point.

Stop wasting time reading reviews, just buy it now

The amount of quality that HB has packed into a $250 USD guitar is absolutely wild. Locking tuners, vintage style tuning pegs, roasted maple neck, double bound body, custom color and satin finish, stainless steel frets, compensated brass saddles? If you spec out an equivalent fender, it runs about $2000. The neck is really nice, I sometimes just walk past the guitar on its stand and run my hand up and down the neck a couple times because it's so velvety smooth. And it looks great on the roasted neck which has a nice level of stripes and darker color. The fretboard is incredibly smooth. I just added a light layer of lemon oil and it looks dark and beautiful all the way down. The fret job is noticeably better than the Epiphone LP I bought last November. They could maybe use 1 more pass on the ends with the file but that's about it. And they're really beefy frets so it's easy to finger them if you're newer. Pickups are really good sounding, my only complaint is I wish they had just a bit more clarity when playing clean chords, but other than that, they sound like a pretty typical tele bridge and neck and that's why I was looking to buy a tele in the first place. The body binding looks really good and is flush with the body all the way around. 3 layer pickguard, chrome finishes. Plus a pretty decent gig bag. I think it even came with decent strings (elixirs if I remember correctly). What more can you ask for?

It's $250, buy it now because the wait time looks like it's doubled since I got mine a couple months ago. The satin gold is beautiful in person too, with a nice sheen when the light hits it.