Harley Benton TE-90FLT SB Deluxe Series Reviews

This is a fantastic guitar!

Love this guitar. Been playing for a long time and this has replaced my 2009 American Deluxe Strat. The Harley Benton has great tone (kind of like filtertron) and both the bridge and neck are very usable/good! The setup wasn't good (high action) and the tuners are very average. I plan to sway the tuners and have already swapped the volume knob for a low friction one, since I use for swells.

Very nice

I think this would be an excellent choice for a first guitar. Body is made out of 3 pieces, neck is from a single piece of wood and has nice satin finish which I prefer to painted necks. I've seen this model in videos before but didn't like the colors... until I saw that they have it in sunburst. I could never understand the reverse headstock on guitars but it is what it is. It's a cheap guitar so no roasted neck, no locking tuners or other extras but pickups are excellent. I never played any real filtertrons so I don't know how they are supposed to sound but I think they would sound just like these. Low noise humbuckers but with a very interesting timbre, hard to describe really but I think very suitable for rockabilly or country. There was a video on youtube where the user was demonstrating defective electronics - microphonic pickups on this model. The one that I received doesn't have this problem and was reasonably set up out of the box. Once I change the strings I may try to lower the action but it's reasonably good as it is.

Will be sending back

I think that this guitar is outstanding value for money but it's not the sound for me and I found the neck too narrow.

It was made exceptionianally well and looked great the only exception was the dreadfull quality of the plastic scratch plate and back covers and which are unfortunately not easy to buy new replacement ones because of the unusual pickup configuration but I would still recommend it but it's not for me.

UPDATE I have adjusted the pickup height's and now like the sound and I am getting used to the narrower neck so now starting really love it and will be keeping but will look for a scratch plate replacement.

Ofcourse you can spend thousands on a guitar and still have to

make adjustments

Excellent guitar for the price

The guitar plays and sounds great. The price is very affordable and the shipping was a reasonable time to the USA.

Great guitar punches well above its price point

Arrived safely, no damaged. Fantastic sound. Once setup to my preference it was a joy to play. I tend to find you need to spend a good few hours playing a new guitar, get familiar with it. I made some adjustments to the pickup height and the poles,.I prefer to try get the most out of the stock hardware if possible and rarely see the need to change.

The ‘“bang for buck” that keeps Harley Benton relevant

This guitar is excellent for the price range, period. Are you going to sell your Fenders? No. Can you gig and record with it? Absolutely.

I was lucky to receive a well setup instrument, which saves me quite a bit of time. With one exception: the pickup height isn’t ideal, and there is little or no adjustment available. (I will have to disassemble and see if adding height adjustment springs is possible.)

What’s good? Straight neck. Rather good fret work. Nice and resonant. Very good setup on this. Bridge is decent-to-good. I see no need to replace it. The pickups sound great, exactly what they are meant to replicate, though I’d like a little more height adjustment. Very nice paint job on this one too.

What’s not good? Plastic nut. (Often an easy replacement, let’s see how much glue is back there…) Typical scratchy frets that you find in this price range. (Easy fix.). The tuners are also quite poor. (Easily replaced). The jack, typical cheap jack. Replaceable. Will I? Not sure. Let’s see how it breaks in…

Overall this is a bargain and a welcome addition to my music room.

Incredible Value

Despite what the price may lead you to believe, this is a real guitar. I gigged one of these for a brief period, and it never let me down. The only problem I have with it was the pickups, they do not sound like filtertrons, (which is fine for some, but I wanted a Cabronita), obviously this is an easy fix and does not detract from my recommendation.

Great Deal!

I wish the bridge was a little more country, but it plays great and it was very much a steal!

Great tele sound and playability

Thank you Harley Benton for making these great quality instruments available at such affordable prices

Check it closely after receiving it

I like the guitar, but I got a faulty unit, probably I wasn't lucky enough, I noticed it too late to return it, the issue is the volume knob does not work as it should be, it wont adjust the volume, it works more of turn on switch, and it blasts the full volume without the possibility to adjust it

The golden age of cheap guitars

I have owned and played a lot of guitars the last 30 years.

Set it up to your likings.

Close your eyes,plug this wonderful guitar into a GOOD tube guitar amp and save a lot of money...

If you don't have a good tube amp, buy this guitar and save money for the amp.

If you want that 10% better guitar go for the famous custom shop.

If you are lucky you may hit a good resonating CS guitar.

But you may not...

I wish we had guitars like this on this price range 30 years ago...

I m gonna buy one more for decoration...

It is that cheap.

Great guitar for value

I mainly use guitar for live gigs and also for some studio work.

The guitar was well set up when I took it out from the box. Fretwork was amazing, but whoever was doing it wasn't very careful, because there are visible trace of fretwork on the neck. But for me that is not an issue since guitar feels comfortable to play. It stays in tune, and neck is also comfortable to play. The biggest plus are pickups. They sound nice and have some bite. I really like them. They are little bit scooped, but that is not an issue for me. Also reverse headstock looks very cool.

The plastic pickguard is unnecesery and I would remove it, if there wasnt relief hole beneath it. Also some quallity nut would be nice. Guitar have a litlle bit of neck dive, but I can live with that.

Pros:

- great value for money

- great looks

- pickups sounds amazing

- great neck

Cons:

- litlle neck dive specially when playing in stand position

- plastic pickguard cover

- plastic nut

I would recommend this guitar to all who wants to try more agressive version of a tele. For that price you can't go wrong.

It's a very good choice, I love it. My previous guitar was a jackson, but this guitar from harley benton is much better. Sounds cleaner and richer than my previous guitar. I tell my friends about this guitar because I'm still amazed that you can buy a guitar this good for the price. It's simply unbelievable.

Overall great guitar

Great sounding and great playing guitar! One of my favorites so far!

Good, but a little surprised

This was my 4th Harley Benton purchase (I previously purchased an HB mandolin, as well as the Harley Benton TE-52 NA Vintage Series tele and the Harley Benton JB-75MN NA Vintage Series bass) and I have to say my luck finally ran out (somewhat) on this purchase.

With all the previous HB instruments I was blown away by the perfect quality and sound. None of the instruments needed much work out of the box - but I can't say the same for this guitar. Yes, as other reviews have mentioned, the tone of the pickups is stellar and exactly what I had hoped for. But, the build quality on this one was not the same as the others.

Also, the nut is strange because it is a much taller nut, but the grooves are cut so deeply (poorly) that the middle two strings buzz a bit. There was some residue on the frets (maybe rust) as well as on the back of the tuners. I simply wiped off the tuners, but the frets needed to be sanded, so that was quite a process of removing strings, taping neck, sanding, and hoping the frets are level.

The screws for adjusting the pickups were stripped, so barely useable, even though the pickup height needed to be adjusted. I eventually gave up and just left them where they are even though it's not where I want them.

The volume knob makes a strange scratching sound when adjusted, and it's not the cap, which I removed to check. Doesn't matter a lot to me because I basically just keep it at full volume anyway.

There is a strange almost tremolo sound (volume dipping randomly) when sustaining a chord and I'm not sure if that is a wiring issue or a bad volume pot... at this point I will live with it but it's disappointing when compared to other HB guitars.

Not a huge fan of the reverse headstock, but it's "cool" I guess. At least the neck looks and feels great and the tuners work really well.

The body chambers have shielding paint and foil so the guitar is absolutely silent which is a huge plus for me.

Even though there was an inspection sticker, I feel like this one slipped through any quality control. Maybe I just got unlucky this time and got the bottom of the barrel. Still a great guitar for the price, but not as impressive as other (cheaper) HB's I own.

Tube Snob

Most unique HB I have. Tone, Neck like silk and impedable fit and finish. No need to modify.

Quality Guitar

Not really skilled enough to give a true evaluation Of this quality guitar but I do have a good ear ! and what I can play sounds better than anything I have owned before.

Excellent value to boot.

Stunned.

I'm honestly stunned by this guitar. For the price, it rivals most guitars two to three times its price. Plays well straight out of the box. Smooth fret edges, gorgeous wood grain and neck, and the Filtertron style pickups sound amazing in clean and overdriven amp settings- they're clear and punchy, but drive harder than a traditional Tele does. The Canadian maple neck is smooth and feels fast and sleek, and despite what I've read about the tuners, everything seems to stay in tune just fine so far. In fact, this shipped from Germany to my house in the States over the course of ten days and the guitar was almost perfectly in tune when I unpacked it. I purchased this mainly as an additional guitar to record with, I'm excited to see how this performs!

Highly recommened!

I like this guitar!

I saw it on a review video and didn't think much of it until I heard it.

I didn't think it looked good, but how wrong when you see it in the flesh, the reverse headstock really suits it and it has a standout character all of it's own.

It sounds amazing, I play mostly with tube gain. It even sounds great with the tone turned right down on the bridge pickup.

The neck is super satin smooth and invites play.

This guitar has it's own personality, what more could you want for the money?

very very good

After reading a few reviews I decided upon this model and really was not disappointed. The Quality of finish is very good. The Guitar came pretty much set up and almost in tune. I changed the Trees for Goldo as recommended (although how much of an issue this is I do not know). The pickups are a real surprise very punchy but also give a good "Clean" sound. The action as delivered is good and easily playable (could be a bit lower though). The tuners Tune smoothly with no apparent slippage (so far). Volume and Tone controls work well enough, but I normally control via the amp so leave these dialled fully up (the pots and knobs are perhaps the only glimmer of cheapness). Selector switch selects..no cracking popping etc. As with other reviews of this guitar it plays, feels and looks like a much more expensive Guitar. Totally recommended