Harley Benton TE-70 Black Paisley Reviews

Just a Tele... Love it

About me:

Been playing for over 35 years, average at best. Mostly a 70s rockhead, Stones, CCR... I can play anything if you don’t mind it sounding like Chuck Berry….Ha Ha…

I have about 20 guitars (only 1 acoustic..) Some good - USA 72 Deluxe Tele, PRS SE Custom 24 Exotic Top, Ibanez S series, some not so good – the wife has a Hanna Montana Washburn… crazy woman…

I recently brought the HB CST24HB and TE-70 Paisley.

I have the USA 72 Deluxe and a Squire 72 with P90s set up KEEF style – Open G 5 string.

Love both, neither give me the classic Tele feel and tone.

Review of the HB TE-70:

Pros:

Just a Tele… Just what I wanted.

This guitar looks good.

Build quality is very good.

It has a chunky neck that is nice and bendy. The action is fine.

The neck is typical Tele lipstick – mellow.

The bridge pickup is great – typical Tele but with a greater range.

Very versatile guitar that handles cleans through to JCM800 very well.

Cons:

None

When comparing this guitar against the USA 72 Deluxe and the Squire 72:

The build quality is very good, as good as or better than the Squire (sadly the workmanship of the USA 72 is surprisingly rough).

The HB is more dynamic than the 72s, similar to a classic tele with more range (I leave the tone in the middle and can adjust for more mud or more bite than a classic tele).

All three tune up and stay in tune very well

Conclusion:

100% recommended.

Is it a better guitar than the Squire Standard Tele? Yes.

Harley Benton TE-70 Black Paisley

new harley owner, i read the reviews and made my purchase. item was out of stock and waited about 2 months. it arrived in perfect condition, looks and plays great. no complaints at all. i purchased this guitar expecting to modify it, but after playing it awhile, all i'm changing is the pickguard, strings, and maybe tuners to locking tuners. it's a thick piece of wood, so get a comfortable strap. i love this guitar.

Solid guitar

Works well, good finish, great neck, good bang for buck

HB TE-70 BP

Zeer mooi gitaartje.

Frets en fretboard zijn onberispelijk en zo is de finish.

Spijtig genoeg is er 1 negatief punt . . . de gitaararm staat lichtjes uit de haak tov de body maar wonderwel doet dit niets af aan de intonatie want die is perfect ! ! !

Al bij al goede Telecaster voor weinig geld.

looks good sounds good plays great

delighted

Very good product.

I am very satisfied with the quality of product related with the good price.

Good instrument for the price

I am using the guitar to make home records, and I needed a guitar with single pickups. For the price, the instrument has a beautiful sound. Nice clean and drive.

Pros

- Price

- Sound

- Keep turning as well

Cons

- Frets need a little polish

Great instrument

Got this guitar because I needed a tele - and now I kinda love it.

It's beautiful, light, well crafted and is silly cheap for what you get.

To note: the neck is a pretty thick C, but still comfortable. I'm used to MIM strat, if this helps.

The only thing I can call bad was the nut. It was made of cheap looking plastic, the grooves were cut in a rather poor manner and it sat pretty high. It didn't suit the rest of guitar at all. But I have to admit, apart from the looks it worked, so can't complain. Fortunately, I ordered new nut alongside the guitar so its now perfect.

I also changed tuners for locking ones, but the stock worked well.

Pros:

- comfortable, but chunky, neck,

- light weight,

- playability and setup,

- looks,

- good tone, both from pickups and unplugged,

- well working tone and volume.

Cons:

- poor quality nut

Go get it guys! :)

Fantastic Telecaster-copy

After lowering the strings, adjustment of the trussrod, and repositioning the nut to the center, this guitar sounding and playing like butter. You can not get a better guitar at this price level.

Excellent base for a project guitar

After having mine for over 1 year and a half, and owning a bunch of more expensive instruments, I still pick it up when I want a simple, no nonsense guitar that can go from mellow, jazzy tones, to crunchy rock rhythm at the flick of a switch. It looks really good if you like the paisley detailing, and apart from a few flaws (expected at this incredible prince point), it punches way above its weight.

My TE-70 still came with Wilkinson pickups, which were incredibly microphonic (hence the 3 stars for sound). Because I like to use high gain amps and pedals, I've replaced the more offending bridge pickup almost immediately - an easy enough job (if you know what you're doing) because of the easy access to the controls. I still kept the Wilkinson neck pickup, which I'll probably end up replacing at some point.

I've also replaced the original tuners with new Klusons. The originals did the job, but could be a bit sticky and jumpy - the Klusons are buttery smooth and look the part.

The fret edges also needed some filing, as some of them were uncomfortably sharp - not enough to hurt, just enough to feel cheap.

In all, if you're looking for a really inexpensive TE model guitar, enjoy the exquisite paisley finish, and won't shy away from doing some mods, this might be perfect for you.

Good quality great value for money.

I have been looking at Harley Benton guitars for a while now and viewing reviews online, I finally took the plunge and bought this one as I am missing a telecaster in my collection.

This guitar arrived Thursday 27/9/18 and it is now the following Monday, when it arrived I opened it and left it to acclimatise for a couple of hours before testing it. Out of the box the finish looks amazing and it appears blemish free, on testing it was very good indeed and does what a telecaster should.

This is what I have found, the intonation was just right and in fact it was ready to go, that night I took it to band practice an got a few laughs but when I plugged in and went the laughs stopped and by the end of the evening the other guitarist was having a play with it and grinning like a giddy teenager.

On Friday night I gigged it and with the lights low nobody cared what make it was just as long as the music sounded right, I then gigged it saturday and it still done its job.

In short, I personally have had no issues up to now and for the price you can't go wrong. I've had guitars 8 times the price and and been glad to get rid of them. This will definitely be a keeper.

Magic

I once bought myself a bright shiny red American Standard Tele - my most expensive electric guitar. Within a few years I sold it with few regrets - I just never played it for more than 10 minutes at a time.

So it was with some trepidation that I purchased this TE70. Reviews were good to excellent (as usual with Harley Benton), but if an original Tele hadn't worked for me, why would this?

Three months later and I haven't put it down.

The sounds it makes is probably the main reason. It seems to have a far far greater range than any of my other guitars and the tones are very satisfying. I spend very little time trying to tweak the sound - it's already there! A bit magical really, as is the feel of it when I'm playing. Everything seems much easier to play, and sounds more interesting. It looks good as well; a little more subdued than I expected but most people like it (including the wife!).

But the sound .......!!!

I won't be selling this one.

A month later edit:-

Two problems made themselves known after frequent use. The first was breaking strings! I'm a bit heavy handed I know, but to have two break within 2 weeks was disappointing. The problem was at the bridge where the strings are routed over brass "rollers" which don't have grooves for the strings to sit in. Swapped them over for a set with grooves - problem resolved. Tone still superb.

Second problem might be a bit more costly - the tuning is very unstable, so new tuners will probably be necessary. Oh well. Still my favourite guitar.

Good Value!

Great guitar for its price.. Fast shipping.. Thanks!!..

Very Happy!

The guitar is really good! I love it and enjoy playing it. I had to do some setting up, but that was expected. On the head stock, the second string tuner is a little out of line. Nothing I can't live with. The word "Deluxe" is missing the "l". I thought that was a little sloppy. Here again, the guitar is great and I would order again! They go overboard to make sure you're happy and you just can't beat the price on HB models. Thank you again!

This a great telecaster found a few sharpe frets but they can be sorted out quickly. My guitar teacher can't believe the quality for the price you get with harley benton guitars hes already brought a few strats allready for his students.

Great guitar for the price

For this price, the guitar is really good. I bought this guitar to myself, basically to record some songs at home. The construction is pretty good, no big issues. Playable right out of the box. The only issue I had was that the jack was a little bit loose, but I could solve that in 5 minutes.

The pickups are not the best, but for what I use it, that's fine.

Pros - Good quality, nice sound, beautiful

Cons - Pickups

Simply a great value!

The guitar arrived this morning..and I am just so impressed with the build quality of it! The guitar was still in-tuned when I took it out of the box after all the travelling it did from Germany to Singapore! The intonation was spot on..the fret-board is clean and nicely setup (no jagged fretwork). The Wilkinson compensated bridge with brass saddles is an added bonus to this beautiful guitar. Pickups are ok sounding..the bridge pickup dont seem to be overly microphone unless you are playing at really loud volumes. The C shaped neck is a little too thick for my personal liking but I can live with it.

At it's price point, this is a great guitar to own. At some point, I might do some modifications to it but for the time being I'm going to enjoy it as it is. Oh and the sustain of this guitar is great!!!...ok I'll stop getting all excited.

Update 11th June 2018: I'm totally in love with this guitar. It has that Tele sound that i always wanted and it came across so apparent in some of the recording sessions I've done recently. I have gotten used to the neck and have not change anything in it!!!:)

My review for this guitar is @ https://youtu.be/SZEdIw_z1-w

I almost love it

There are only a couple things about this gtr that I don't love.

It it looks good enough (not great), sounds very good.............they feel and pliability is not quite what I'm used to. As with other inexpensive guitars the fret ends need dressed badly. Frets in general need leveled, dressed and polished (fret buzz with comfortable action). And the neck is crazy thick. Like twice as thick as any other T style I own or have played. It's playable but so weird or uncomfortable it makes you not want to pick it up and play.

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.

Best buy for the money!

Given the price - You cannot, just simply can't but better guitar than that :) After a few modifications it plays like guitars three times the price