so ive ben counting down the months waiting for this guitar to become available, the anticipation was palpable as i ordered , i watched a load of youtube re.views , everyone raving about this guitar, well the right hand version anyway.
ive played this now for a few days , 2 days sraight out of the box and 2 days set up by myself and here is my honest
revue
firstly let me say im a big fan of harley benton and have owned 6 all told although 4 have been sold on ,
this is the most expensive one and its certainly the best.
harey bentons are great modders guitars , the wood is usualy very good but the hardware can be poor and i usually replace a lot of it , the hardware on this guitar is top quality
the tuners are super smooth with a good ratio, locking and staggered in height
the nut is properly cut
the switch is very nice and the pots work perfectly with smooth good taper
the bridge is nice, very stable and the trem is great
the pickups are just good , not great but well good enough
the wood is really nice , just a breathtaking finish all over , i have looked all over and it is flawless
the neck is lovely , no buzz , the dots are a nice touch as is the bottom truss rod , the frets are stainless steel and feel smooth and fast , the finish on the rear of the neck is superb.
the set up was poor , done with a ruler , i guess right handers setting up left guitars is always going to be a problematic , just the intonation , the releif and nut were ok ...well i say ok the nut is the right height but its pinging like a 70's space invader on string bends . its supposed to be self lubricating , anyway i put my usual 9-42s and ran a pencil over the slots and its fine now , i also filed the 2 corners over as there pretty sharp
my other slight niggle is the fret edges are slightly sharp , nothing major just i bought the lp junior when that arrived in stock and the fret ends on that guitar are smoother and its 70 cheaper.
the guitar comes with a whole kit of tools , a rod for the truss mech and 4 , yes 4 hex keys , youll need them all to set up the guitar , the bridge is actually a pretty complex piece of engineering from trevor wilkinson , a hybrid of the floyd rose and the strat bridge it floats on 2 pivots and has locking saddles, its a long drawn out process setting up the intonation especially as i normally do it 2 or 3 times every couple of days till its perfect
sound wise , itas really nice , the neck pup is very usable in hb or coil split , the bridge is a bit tinny but you can tone down a bit withthe knob and its fine , the pickups are gool quality ,they really are its just compared with the rest they are the weakest link
conclusion
great guitar for th money or double the money really , i will probably put in some different pickups , this guitar deserves better ,in fact it deserves the very best. the hardware is top quality and the body is plain amazing as is the neck.
the coil tap lets you get 6 different sound settings that are all usable. if this guitar had adifferent name on the headstock it could cost 800 - 1000 so 270 is such a bargain its not true.....
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