Harley Benton TE-90QM Trans Red 4-stars Reviews

TE-90QM - Budget Friendly

Was wanting a "T" Style guitar to add to my collection and this model looked nice and was cheap. I was not expecting much but was actually surprised at the quality of this in relation to its price. There were some issues with the Guitar (Which I expected) i: Nut needed graphite adding and small burrs filling ii: Pickups are a little weak (although I am comparing to a Revstar RSS02T) - Have had to raise them a little (but still weak) iii: Provided strings were pretty bad. iv: Not a fan of the Amaranth Fretboard (Although it isn't as bad after 20-30 hours of playing in) Lots of good things about the guitar though i: No Sharp Fret Edges ii: Intonates perfectly (Action adjusted to my preference with no issues) iii: No blemishes on the finish iv: Looks like a very nice Guitar. Overall for the price I have been very happy with this guitar.

Grande strumento

Grande strumento, ottimo rapporto qualità/prezzo Pro Estetica, è particolare, ricorda una tele ma ha la sua personalità, bellissima la resa dei colori Comodità, bel manico, scorrevole, piccolina, si suona benissimo Suono, i P90 fanno il loro lavoro Contro: Pesante. È una semiacustica, santo cielo, ma pesa come una Gibson lo Materiali. Le viti dei pickup erano spanate, c'è voluta una sudata per sistemarli. Se non sei uno smanettone bene così.

Sadly not as good as it looks

It had to happen eventually, I have bought a few Haley Benton's and they have been great looking - well built guitars, unfortunately this one falls short of the mark. I'm not sure why there is so much difference in the quality but I suspect it comes from a different factory than any of the other models I have.

I had never owned a semi hollow bodied guitar nor a guitar with P90's before so I thought I would take the plunge on this unit as it was within my price range.

It is on first looks a very beautiful looking guitar but once you look deeper it quickly becomes apparent that there are some issues.

The main issue for me is the neck. I had to send back the first guitar sent (apart from a few minor issues) the neck wasn't fitted properly and had been "over" tightened which left some screws spinning which I thought may have been the reason I could not tune it properly.

The replacement had the opposite, two of the fixing screws had not even been tightened and were sticking out about 5mm which I gently finished off fitting. Unfortunately this unit also seems to have tuning issues and I am now trying to figure out why (hopefully I wont need to replace the neck).

On both units the fingerboard itself needed a lot of TLC and the frets were in a very poor condition with some sort of built up composite (corrosion) which was extremely difficult to get off.

I also noticed when sorting out the fingerboard that it appears to have been painted or stained black for some reason which kept coming off when cleaning. I found it strange that they had done this as on the sides you can seen it was actually a lovely medium shade of brown with a touch of purple in it which would have looked great on the entire board.

I feel that Harley Benton have missed a real opportunity here to make this an absolute winner of a guitar, which it still could become.

As noted previously it is a lovely looking instrument with a unique design that unfortunately is let down in the manufacturing and QC process.

At the very least HB I'm hoping that from my review you get on to sorting out the neck issues with your manufacturer.

delicious guitar

I can only say that I love it

I'll limit my intervention to replacing the tuners by locking tuners and adjust a bit the fine tuning

perfect

Almost perfect, but…

Beautiful guitar. Neck great. Frets a little gritty, but an easy fix. Electronics sloppily installed. Jack was loose, but worse was the fact there was no sound . Was able to find wiring shorted to the tone pot and repair it, but the average person would not be able to figure it out and fix it. Oversight that QC inspection should have found.

What a beautiful guitar

The build and finish is excellent, really stunning. The sound from the P90s is great, from bright to warm and I cannot fault the tone or volume controls. There is an intermittent fault switching to the neck pickup which looses a star but the neck is a joy, quite a surprise at this price.

Great guitar, but some shortcuts

First up, I really like this guitar. It's light, the neck feels great, and I love the color and vibe. I've gigged with it several times and gotten nothing but compliments.

That being said, there are a few issues with this guitar. The string ferrules on the back were installed by Mr. Magoo, as they're not in a straight line. Not a huge deal, but it's obvious it was done by eye (and not well). Also, the fretboard material has a rosewood color, but they stained the front of the fretboard black and left the sides natural. It's odd to see a black fingerboard but brown sides. Why not just leave the fingerboard natural? It would look better, in my opinion. But the black does make the MOP inlays pop, which I'm sure is the point.

Cosmetic issues aside, I replaced the tuners with locking Gotohs and leveled and dressed the frets. She plays awesome, so with some TLC this guitar is a winner overall.

So many good things

This guitar has a lot of good features. The sounds from the P-90 pickups are very useful. The guitar is very playable, the satin neck has a nice feel. There were only two drawbacks. The tuners were of a lower quality and should be upgraded. Also, the figuring in the pictures wasn't nearly as clear on my guitar. It was more of a nearly opaque red with just a tiny bit of grain showing through. But other than that it is a great playing and sounding guitar.

Hard to beat for the price

I own many guitars, from inexpensive to 4000€+ of value and top of the line series, and I must admit that for the price it is a really nice guitar.

I really wish I could have had such a nice guitar for that price when I started.

Pros:

- Slim satin finish neck

- Fret work is good, no cutting edges

- Decent nut

- Nice two piece top

- Decent wood

- Pearl inlays

- Large potentiometers

- Good strings

- Good stable tuners

- Setup was OK out of the box, but there was room to get the action lower and the intonation had to be perfected.

The bad:

- The "F" holes binding is really poorly done on the guitar I got

- The finish had small scratches here and there and fingerprints/grease

- While they sound nice, these P90 Pickups are microphonic...

They have to be replaced if you intend to play on stage or with a decent volume.

- The potentiometer shafts are too short for a hollow body!!!

This causes the inappropriate volume and tone knobs to mark and cut into the finish. Very bad. You will have to raise the knobs, change them, or change the pots to use them.

Some other thing to note, the guitar was sent without tension on the strings? Neck had to be adjusted

Conclusion, if you are a beginner, you cannot go wrong for the price.

Buy it, go to a luthier to do a basic setup, then learn to adjust according to your preferences.

I plan to use this guitar during shows and have no fear of breaking it or getting it stolen.

Would definitely buy again!

Harley Benton should make a more expensive model (400 to 500€) with better finish, roasted neck, better pickups, and other colors as well as bridge/tremolo options.

Overall great guitar!

Plays great sounds great, and feels great. The tuners do the job and keep it in tune, the only critique I have is I wish the wires were tucked away a little better. You can see them from the F holes.

Unexpectedly good.

Great look and sound, the scratching frets are all the more annoying. But it is clear that with a smooth neck this charm would cost much more.

Best guitar from location

Action is pretty low. Sounds is sweet. I’ll pick up this guitar more.

Better quality than Fender MIM

I threw this in on an order just for the hell of it. $17o USD WTH. Its amazing. Ive yet to find a flaw. Neck is perfect. I mean perfect. No sharp ends, rounded and frets are polished. Have a new MIM Fender Jaguar that is crap vs this. Im really blown away. Im not a name brand guy so i dont give a crap whats on the head stock. I'll buy another HB all day long

A simple design that is very well put together. The finish was flawless, the neck although a chunky "C" is slick and fast. Good fretwork and a steal for the price. Also an excellent platform to build up with higher grade parts as I did.

UPDATE....after a string change I noticed the low E tuning machine was a bit off center, so I remove the screw to find a broken screw shaft in the wood. The factory tilted the tuner and put another screw beside the broken one. Poor quality control. Now I have to find a way to remove it without damaging the neck.

Very playable T style hollow body guitar.

Bought as a manageable hollow body for blues.

Finish and fittings: Overall, very good, hardware looks good. Fretboard not dry. Fret ends could be rounded off a little better, they're not sharp but you can feel them.

Frets need a polish, they look dull and scratch on bends and general playing.

Paint work is sloppy, there are a few bleeds into the binding and the headstock has some small streaks of the body colour under the lacquer.

There are a few minor scratches and nicks which shouldn't be there on a new guitar, but they are minor.

Binding around the F-holes is a little rough and unfinished at points.

Tone and volume knobs turn but feel a little scratchy.

Tuners are only ok. There is slippage and then jumps in the tuning process making it easy to overshoot. The pegs are small and close together and a little tricky even for my average-sized hands.

Add €10 the price and put on better tuners in the factory would be my suggestion.

In terms of tuning stability, it goes out of tune after every set of string bends. The cheap string trees are probably a culprit, and the nut may need some lubrication.

Pickup selector switch is very stiff.

The sound is good, somewhere between a solid and hollow body in terms of resonance.

Body is very lightweight. Maybe 3+ kg at most?

I bought it because I'm a lower-intermediate player and whilst I'd love a 'proper' hollow bodied guitar for blues, I find the size and weight of this more manageable.

Overall, recommended as a nice T variant in your sound collection.

Plesently surprised

If your looking for something different in guitar sound you must try good ol' P90's. Sound half way between a single coil and a humbucker. The guitar it self felt like an old shoe to me and the satin neck is so nice in your hand, I have no idea why they don't make many necks like this? The finish is stunning and no one will believe how little you paid for it. Be a great project guitar if you are that way inclined? Mmm the only complaint I have with it is there were sharp fret ends as with a lot of cheap guitars for some reason?

Lovely guitar for the price - cant go wrong

i have had this guitar about a week now,

it looks amazing, plays amazing right out the box, you really cant complain with the price tag, it was delivered to UK also within 3 working days, so that was amazing it itself.

sounds good acoustically (no amp) also sounds lovely clean and distorted, my only problem would be that it had quite alot of humming when you use high gain, but i wouldnt really use this guitar for metal performances exactly, more jazz, blues and soft rock.

overall very happy with it, i have had 2 harley bentons now, i aim to get more, defo worth the money.

Cool looking

This guitar looks great from far away, up close you can see some imperfections but it's not very bad. The sound is a bit sterile, I expected a bit more. Surprinsingly good tuners. Overall you get what you pay for. Not really at steal in this price range but well worth the money.

One big, mostly plesant surprise

Let me start with saying that the level of workmanship can vary from sample to sample, so my experiences aren't necessarily true for you if you decide to buy one. I waited a few weeks before publishing a review, because it takes some time to go over all the details.

This guitar costs 179 euros, but looks like a guitar that could easily cost 10 times as much. The finish is breathtaking. It's actually a pity that they didn't match the headstock ? that would have been absolutely awesome!

The body has a seamless binding which exactly matches the aged white of the Wilkinson P90 pickups. I don't know it it's a real binding or just paint, but I couldn't care less. Even the F-holes have the same binding!

I have another semi-hollow guitar, a Höfner, which is as light as a feather and quite loud when played acoustically. This guitar is not lightweight by any means. It actually feels rather heavy, and when you look into the F-holes it's clear why: there's a massive center block in the middle, and the sides of the body are solid wood too.

The lack of a scale prevented me to weigh the guitar. In any case, this is not a flimsy construction, which I appreciate very much.

When hitting the low E while holding the guitar body to my own body, everything resonates in a very pleasant way. Maybe the 'string-through' system has something to so with that, not sure. Yet it is acoustically just above average, the guitar doesn't 'push much air'. It's enough for practicing though.

The neck is typical for a Telecaster model. It's not as thin as your typical Ibanez shredder, nor as thick as the ones found on a Gibson Les Paul. I think it's just perfect. It's a one-piece neck, so there's no scarf joint. Instead Harley Benton opted for two string trees to get the necessary angle. The string trees are the cheapest you can buy, but they appear to work well.

The neck was too straight out of the box, which resulted in fret buzz here and there -- in spite of the relatively high position of the saddles. No biggy, the necessary tools are in the box. I like my necks ever-so-slightly concave.

The tuners were a bit stiff at first, but accurate. They loosen up quickly. The nut is well cut for strings up to 010-046. For anything beyond that all bets are off.

All frets on my sample were perfectly level, but needed polishing and were *really* uncomfortably sharp at both ends. I had to polish them all, which is a LOT of work. This is something I find annoying, but it is fixable.

The fret board can use some lemon oil or, even better, Dunlop 02 'Deep Conditioner', which will bring back the beautiful rosewood color. In the end I even used a generic 'dark wood conditioner' which made the fret board even darker. Just a matter of taste.

The (Wilkinson?) bridge on my copy is fine. Intonation was a breeze. On almost all guitars I own the action was too high for comfort 'out of the box' and this HB is no exception. Just take your time to adjust the saddles to your own taste and don't forget to keep the radius of the neck in mind.

The sound of the Wilkinson P90 pickups come amazingly close to those on my $$$$ Gibson Centennial Les Paul Special. While these are single coils, there's hardly any hum unless I plug my amp into an AC outlet without a ground pin. Interesting.

In short: apart from the obvious things (general setup), you might have some work cut out for you to fix some annoying flaws. Yet I kept the price tag in mind, price/performance is what counts here.

When all work is done, this is an amazing guitar which can face any competition.

Excellent Guitar

I bought this guitar and wasn't sure what to expect for the price. I have to say that I am pleasantly surprised.

The guitar arrived promptly and was well packed.

Out of the box it was pretty well set up and very playable.

The range of tones that the guitar produces is good and it has quite a bit of punch.

Generally the guitar is well built, but there are a few minor cosmetic flaws. If these weren't present then this review would be five stars all the way. However considering the price I paid I can overlook these faults and I won't be returning the guitar. It represents excellent value for money.