Harley Benton ST-Modern HH Daphne Blue

This could be amazing for the price. The guitar feels nice in the hand, the neck is nice and smooth apart from a little uneven section where the skunk strip wasn’t fully flush. The colour looks great. The bridge is a nice quality and adjusted with ease. The tuners are decent at holding tune but are a little stiff but work as intended. The nut was cut spot on.

I returned for 2 reasons - 1. The pickups just weren’t for me but I would have kept it if it wasn’t for reason number 2.

2. Again uneven frets from a Harley Benton :( the Chinese made ones don’t have as good fret jobs as the Indonesian made Harley Benton’s I have had in the past. I’ve had similar priced guitars with level frets so it can be done. Very dissapointing especially as the neck and compound radius are fantastic. However there is no point having a 12-16 inch radius fret board if you can’t get a nice low actions it defeats the object.

So if you know how to level and crown frets then this will be amazing for you and hard to beat at £150, however if you need to spend money on a fret level and crowning then I would say defiantly pass on these. Hopefully QC will be worked out on these because Harley Benton would sell loads with level frets.

Picked this up as my first Harley Benton. I am thoroughly impressed!!
The pros:
Roasted Maple neck
Locking tuners
Decent electronics
Solid construction
The cons:
The frets were awful, I had to do a full level crown and polish to get the action to an acceptable height.

I did throw in a genuine Seymour Duncan Invader in the Bridge, and it is miles better than the stock. I'll use the stock neck pickup for now.

Over all this beats ANY Squire, and competes with MIM Fenders. Great purchase!

Das Positive: Lackierung einwandfrei, keine Schraube schief, die sechs Saitenführungshülsen perfekt gebohrt. Halsabsatz sehr angenehm. Hardtailbridge - das beste Vintage Tremolo ;)
Das Negative: Bundenden stehen nicht nur leicht sondern weit über und sind so scharfkantig, daß man besser Sicherheitshandschuhe trägt. Der Skunkstripe hat eine deutlich spürbare und störende Kante. Coilsplit am Halstonabnehmer funktioniert nicht. Mechaniken gehen ungleichmäßig.
Ich habe gar nicht erst probiert, ob man die Saitenlage auch niedriger als 3 - 4 mm bekommt.
Hier müßte man erstmal richtig Zeit und Geld in die Hand nehmen, um ein spielbares Instrument zu bekommen. Vielleicht hatte ich nur Pech, aber ich vermute eher ein grundsätzliches Problem mit dem Qualitätsmanagement.