Harley Benton TE-70 Black Paisley 4-stars Reviews

Very nice t-style guitar

Second harley benton tele style guitar I've owned, the other was the TE-52 vintage. I like both but prefer this one. I'm an at-home hobby guitarist, have never owned a high end guitar, but i have owned some budget guitars of various brands and from what I've seen and played HBs wipe the floor with most of them in this price range.

Update 2019: bought a B stock of the same model with the rosewood veneer. QC seems to have really gone downhill. My B stock had sloppy paint (to be expected) misaligned string trees, both were set too far left-pulling the strings to the left. The high E tuner was misaligned. Frets are poking a little, not sharp but a little unpleasant. My 99 euro TE-30 was finished to a higher standard. I've had a lot of QC issues with my HB purchases recently and it's beginning to put me off buying them.

Beautiful Tele

Nice finish, body and neck ok but poor fret work, needs a leveling job. Sounds ok some noise maybe shielding will solve the problem.

Great, but not perfect

My son was eying this up for ages, and finally, with the help of a birthday contribution, got me to get it for him. The reviews were all very positive, and for the price - what can you say?!

He loves it. It sits next to him. His previous guitar is now neglected and forlorn.

The good:

It looks lovely. Maple neck, skunk stripe. Nice hardware - Wilkinson bridge and pickups, and sealed tuners. Nice paisley finish, if that's your thing. Sounds like a tele - authentic sounding bridge pickup.

It came nicely set up. Needed a twist of the truss rod, and was good to go, good low action, no buzz, good strings. Fret ends not perfect, but good.

The not so good:

The finish, to me, is a little meh. Not the deep gloss I was expecting, and that it needs to really bring up the paisley. But only one minor paint flaw, barely visible. Neither a big deal. But the rave reviews perhaps unreasonably raise your expectations.

Tuning stability hasn't been great. Still sorting that - nut lubrication for starters; lots of winds on the tuning pegs for high strings (the main culprits). Lubricated the nut, its a bit better. May need restringing. We'll see.

The bridge pickup is very microphonic. That's a feature of many teles, some Fenders included, and possibly gives it the authentic character to the sound, but on high gain every click and clunk is picked up. But the main problem is the feedback, which kicks in unpleasantly and uncontrollably past a certain volume.

Investigating that, if you press on the neck end of the bridge plate it suppresses the squeal. The bridge screws are confined to the lower end, (and were actually quite loose, though tightening didn't help), and it may be the headstock end of the bridge plate is not making contact with the body. The internet has many such examples.

So it may mean modifying the bridge with two screws at the headstock edge, but not after I've tried some wax, or thin foam, or something similar to suppress vibration at that edge. But he won't let me near it - yet...

Again, the internet suggests this is a common problem with this model.

Conclusion? Sounds great, pity about the microphonic squeal, which may be fixable. Not perfectly finished, but for the price very good indeed. A satisfied son, a satisfied dad.