Harley Benton TE-90FLT Blue Blast

A beautiful and unique guitar

I have had this guitar for 6 months now.

I purchased it because I wanted to try the Filtertron pickups. The sound samples I heard online convinced me to buy it.

The pros:

The guitar itself is well put together with good finish and it arrived well setup.

The Blue Blast finish looks great.

The semi-hollow nature of the guitar makes it nice and light.

The neck is extremely playable.

The guitar sounds exactly like I had hoped. The Filtertron pickups definitely provide a unique sound.

The cons: The tuners are not of the same quality as the rest of the guitar. Having said that, they are perfectly adequate. They hold their settings. Whilst they aren’t Gotohs they get the job done. I play this guitar in Open D and Open G and therefore use them fairly often to change tunings without any problems.

In conclusion: I wanted a nice looking guitar with Filtertrons and that’s exactly what I have. It sounds like I had hoped for. I love playing it and I am pleased with my purchase.

Incredible deal.

My first experience with Harley Benton. I’d heard such good things and the look and price of this guitar made it impossible to pass up. I was really surprised at how quickly it arrived (Eu to Tennessee US). Packaging was excellent, no shipping issues. I spent 30 minutes setting it up. The one drawback is the stiff tuners but at this price I won’t kick. The guitar feels really good. Seems very well built. Played acoustically it rings out very well. Plugged in it sounds very good. Playability matches guitars costing much, much more! I A/B’d it against a Cabronita I built myself with first rate components including TV Jones pickups - each of which cost more than this guitar! While I did hear differences in sound, I don’t feel like there was really any difference in the quality of sound. I’m blown away by this guitar and just bought another HB today’

Not your average Tele style guitar! Very microphonic pickups. Great value.

I recently started playing guitar again after a long hiatus due to having kids. I've never been too interested in tele styles before, but after a lot of research and finding out about Harley Benton guitars, this one really caught my eye for a few reasons:

1. The Filtertron style pickups

2. The cool looking blast finish

3. The reverse headstock makes this look even more unique and not like just another tele clone

4. The price!

In the past I've had an HH Ibanez, an SSS Kramer, and I currently own a Washburn HSS. I wanted something different and was really intrigued by the Filtertron style, plus a lot of my musical heros play teles, so why not?

My guitar arrived in good condition and was already fairly well set-up and almost in tune; amazing since it came to me in the US all the way from Germany!

There is a little fret buzz, but it isn't really audible when amped up, so that's fine. There are a few minor imperfections in the finish (which looks awesome), some weird gouges/scratches on the end of the guitar near where the rear strap knob is, and a couple rough areas on the neck near the 22nd fret. The frets them selves are a tiny bit scratchy on the sides, but not terrible and well within what I'd consider to be acceptable for the price. The slot where the nut sits looked a little off-kilter, but I think it's due to how the finish on the headstock is sort of angled on my guitar as I haven't noticed any issues with playability or staying in tune. The neck feels very nice, although there does seem to be a couple small spots that are a little rough. All this being said, it is very playable and I've been enjoying it a lot.

The guitar stays in tune VERY well. The tuners are a little stiff and the ratio doesn't seem the best, but honestly, for the PRICE of this guitar, it's definitely well within reason. It stays in tune better than my Washburn WR150.

The knobs on my guitar seem to have been installed at a slight angle and not quite flush with the body, but they still work fine.

I can get some really nice tones out of this guitar, and to me it feels especially heavy on the low end. It's definitely taking me more time to fine tune the tone on this guitar compared to my Washburn, but once dialed in they sound great; this is likely more on me not being used to these types of pickups than on the guitar/pickups themselves.

The only thing that I would caution some folks on with this guitar is that it can have very microphonic pickups. This really only comes into play if you have very high gain and volume settings; otherwise it isn't noticeable. I tend to play rock and use a fair amount of distortion and it isn't normally an issue for me, but if you're playing crazy high gain or at very high volumes then you're probably better off with a different guitar. Apparently this is a known thing with these pickups, and I think it's likely how they get their vintage-esque, lively sound.

I've had such a good experience with this guitar (my first HB) that I've just ordered an SC-550 II Gotoh (the Slash Tribute) because I've always wanted an LP style. That model is a bit more expensive than this one, so I'm hoping it is even higher quality than the TE-90 FLT, which was already a great bargain for me.

To summarize:

- The guitar overall feels very solid and punches well above it's weight in terms of price to value. The hardware isn't anything special, but gets the job done and doesn't feel cheap.

- The pickups sound really great clean, and are very lively. The downside is that at very high gain and volume levels, they become microphonic, which may or may not be a con if you either don't play that style of music or don't mind it (some folks even WANT microphonic pickups). You could always take them out and wax pot them, but that will change the tone somewhat.

- There are some minor cosmetic blemishes, scratches, etc, but they don't take away from the playability and are really only noticeable close up; otherwise this guitar looks super cool and unlike anything else.

- If you've always been curious about a Tele style guitar or Filtertron style pickups, this guitar is an absolute bargain and a great way to try them out.

Great bargain and then some!!!!!!

For the money you can't go wrong! The satin finish on the body is unique and feels good to play. The pickups are very full and pleasant to my ears. I really love these pickups and do not plan to change them out. Great guitar right out of the box. I just tuned it up and started playing!

I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT WITH THIS ONE

Very pleased with this model. One of those guitars that seem to get better the more you play.

The best guitar I've ever played (for this price)

I'll be brief.

Despite the fact that the guitar came to me with a broken tone switcher I completely enjoy playing it and looking at it. It feels great, it sounds awesome (clean, crunch and even distortion) and looks decent.

Nice

Great looking guitar, plays really well. Great colour, nice neck, fret ends well finished, pick ups sound great for the price. Only flaw on this one the tuners are a little close together when tuning. Otherwise a great guitar.. have a look and listen:

https://youtu.be/fzyoYJMS070

It's ok not great not bad

Put of the box needed some setup ,which is fine and got action fairly low. Tuning stability is ok , not great ,but cut a little tight.

The body is a plastic coating to produce the look , not sure of how much I like that but looks ok from a distance, like real wood

The main thing is these are cheap sounding filtertrons , fairly thin and a lot of eq is necessary for a full tone ...would recommend changing out

Overall not a bad guitar ,fun on a budget

My first HB, instant love!

This guitar is my go to for doing ambient. I even have a heavily modified Epiphone Les Paul Standard with splittable Seymour Duncan's that sounds amazing, but the handling of this guitar and the good sounding low output humbuckers, rounded but not dark, makes me always prefer it to my "more expensive" guitar. I bought it along with a Sterling Albert Lee, and I ended up returning the Sterling and keeping the HB. If I could swap a thing from the Sterling, was the 9,5" radius roasted maple neck, that was a breeze to play. Hey Harley Benton! Please do some more rounded fretboards please!!!

Fantastic value for money. Made in Indonesia and shipped from Germany to the UK

Purchased after reading many positive reviews, had it for just over a week now. Summary: Played well straight out of box. Tuners are cheap but usable, neck is straight & true, frets are surprisingly well finished with no fret sprout/sharp edges. Action is low with NO buzzing! Pickups are perfectly usable without change. Pickup switch & output socket both fine. Controls could be smother but work fine. Body is a paint finish that portrays the grain of the wood but it not the actual grain of the body wood. It would be hard to find a better value for money guitar. Best points are the neck/frets/action, the pickups and the nut which is really well cut. Worst point is the tuners but they are perfectly usable in my opinion.