Harley Benton TE-70RW Deluxe Series 3-stars Reviews

Good, but not 'great'...even at this price

I really love the rosewood veneer and the piping to front and back of the body... it looks classy, but the frets have sharp ends that will need filing and the neck has a weird paint finish.

Update: 6 months down the line now and I am having to change the neck as I can't get used to the weird glossy painted neck, plus it's been set awkwardly at a leaning forward angle because it had 'factory fitted' bits of wood added under the screws.

A new satin finished maple neck and a cream scratch plate have completely transformed this guitar... it looks so cool and plays really well now.

Budget Guitar and Budget Parts

The tuning pegs are awful on this guitar and rarely stays in tune. The finish is very good though and when in tune sounds good.

Ok but...

So the guitar is ok as I say in the title but. A few details about the guitar.

The finish is very good looks nice. The weight is ok but if it was a little lighter I wouldn't have a problem. Tuning keys are cheap but it seems that they hold tune. The nut is ok . Elecronics are ok too but the tone control could dail some change to the sound earlier and don't have to almost take down to zero so i can see the tone changing. The volume and pickup selector works fine. Now about the pickups. Their not bad but both are slightly microphonic .Especially the bridge. If toy tap the pick on the bridge or the control plate you can hear through the amp especially on high volume You can also hear the pickups change . But I didn't get any squealing with fuzz or overdrive.

The playability was not good.I had to polish the frets and set it uo from scratch in order to play soft and good. At first when i played my fingers hurt and the got black by the neck. Maybe it is painted? Don't know.

Overall the guitar sounds and plays good , with all the above that I mentioned

IF It is worth it.I Believe for the money it's ok if you can make some adjustments to the guitar.

Something I forgot the neck is quite flat radius wise so it takes some time to get used to it if you played in 9,5-inch radius all your life as I did. I didn't find it the most comfortable I must say. The most important I forgot is that when i changed strings all the string ferrules got out with the strings witch means I had to glue them back in . Also, a bad thing.

That's all as I mentioned It's an ok guitar if you can do some adjustments.

Good with Reservations.

Received the guitar in good condition and was satisfied with the sound of the pickups. The guitar definitely could have been set up and assembled better, with many annoying little things that are reflected in my rating.

The action was very high and needed adjustment, the pick guard was installed really sloppy and warped, fret ends were sharp and uncomfortable and strings were not centered on the neck too well. I have 2 other HB?s and have to say this sample is a disappointment. Any ?Rosewood? look was invisible beyond a couple feet and the look of the body color was more dark brown.

If this had been my 1st Harley Benton, I might have been tempted to make it my last, but I know that HB can do much better than this.

Okay Guitar for the Money

The guitar's finish is excellent.....but the pickups are very weak and microphonic. The string height was way out of wack (some strings were WAY higher than others). Whoever did the final QA on this guitar needs a refresher course on QA because the guitar was unplayable when I received it. After a couple of hours spent on action/intonation/neck relief, the guitar is now comfortable to play, however the pickups will need to be replaced because they feedback with the slightest amount of OD.

Faulty finish

This is the first cosmetically flawed Harley Benton I have received, generally they are very good quality or such a low price. However when I first started to play the TE-70 the Rosewood laminate started to break away from the edge of the guitar.

The shipping box was not damaged nor was the guitar edging, the laminate is simply coming off the guitar.