Harley Benton TE-52 NA LH Vintage Series 4-stars Reviews

excellent basic tele, better than my CV50s

The guitar arrived safe and sound, delivered quickly at a fair rate.

The neck is so dang comfortable to play, really top notch look to it with the light roasting.

fret ends are pretty standard a little rough, but no worse than most every import guitar I've owned outside of my Agiles

Pickups sound great compared to my Indonesian made CV50s it is the winner hands down.

The tuners are as good as anything that has come on my Squier level stuff, better than SX and others in same price range

Bridge hardware looks almost identical to my Squire CV. I will upgrade to compensated saddles as I did there, the barrels aren't bad, just not great.

Can't speak to quality of electronics, but they work well so I'll leave them be.

Amazing for the price, but with some flaws

I bought this guitar as an addition to my collection, in which a Telecaster was still missing. After reading and seeing all kinds of raving reviews in which it is compared with much more expensive Fender guitars, I decided to give it a go.

The good:

This is a very good looking telecaster copy. The wood is nice and it looks decently made. The neck is (after setting it up properly) very nice to play and the acoustic sound is good.

After plugging it in, the sound doesn't disappoint. The bridge pickup has the twang a Telecaster is famous for and the neck pickup is smooth, though there is quite the volume drop from bridge to neck pickup.

The bad:

As with every lefthanded guitar I've ever tried or purchased: The tone knob is useless and works more as an on/off switch. But since I never use that, that is not a big thing. Also the tuners are not that good, but okay for the price.

The setup from the factory was not good, with the action being similar to my dreadnought acoustic. For a first guitar for a beginner this would be an issue.

A more heard complaint about this model: It is heavy! Weighs more than either my Les Paul and my swamp ash strat clone.

The ugly:

One major flaw on my particular model: The bridge saddles were uneven sized and because of this the string spacing at the bridge was not even. Within the saddles (there are 2 strings per saddle, classic Tele setup) the distance was 9mm, but between the saddles the distance was 11mm. This is a difference you notice while playing.

In the end I decided not to keep the guitar, but with new saddles (or some metal grinding) and tuners it would have been a great guitar for the value.