Harley Benton ST-62 VW Vintage Series

OK, its Eu111 (£79) so its not going to be a Fender CS Strat but it IS surprisingly good for the money. Clearly styled around the early 60's Strats, its a good looking instrument. Straight out of the box it presented no cosmetic faults whatsoever. It comes with an 'accessory pack' of truss rod and bridge adusting allen keys, a "throwaway" short, cheap and nasty 1/4" mono jack lead, and the tremolo (vibrato) arm. This model is called "Vintage White" but is really light cream, just as Oly White might become after many years. Its a thick plastic paint coat which hopefully will wear well. So I expected quite a dull body tone acoustically but the Basswood body is quite reasonably resonant. It's fitted with branded Wilkinson 60's style single coil Alnico pickups, standard Strat controls and 5 way switch. Lifting the scratchplate reveals fairly cheap pots and blade switch (what do you expect for Eu111?) but for the moment everything works as it should with little "noise" - and I work right in front of the monitor. The bridge is a mock-60's no-name with pressed steel saddles. As supplied, its hard-tailed - flat to the body - but it's only a few minutes work to loosen the claw and bridge screws sufficiently to give a 2.5 to 3mm float. The 3 springs supplied do allow tuning to return to normal after use. Serious dive-bombing does knock the tuning out however. The worst thing about the bridge, and about the guitar in total is the positively awful zinc trem block. It's small and the internal screw thread for the arm is SO slack that it actually rattles unless it is wound in tight, which defeats the object. Whatever tolerance it has been tapped to is a very poor one. Time to get out the PTFE tape! The scratchplate is a 3 ply 11 screw mock-tortoiseshell one. 3 ply torty on a 62 Strat? Dont think so! The edge finish was very good and I thought it was very pretty. Neck pocket wasnt a 'precision fit' but wasn't at all bad and I've seen worse on 'real' Fenders.
The neck is 22 frets (excellent idea) Canadian Maple (that's Pine to you and me) with a rosewood topping and medium jumbo frets. No skunk stripe so the adjustable truss rod was inserted prior to being capped. Kluson type no name tuners keep tune reasonably well. Two string trees which I may experiment with the removal of to remove friction points. Fret dressing was good, no sharp edges or loose frets etc. The neck is a C profile and 13.75" radius fretboard so quite flat compared to some but very playable. Not hugely struck on the poly varnished neck (prefer satin myself) but it does not get sticky so its a personal thing.
Came with 9's D'Addario's which sounded OK but were like playing elastic so were replaced with Elixir 11's.
Sounds? For Eu111 ((£79) it gives a good account of itself IMO. (Tested through a Vox AC30 twin cab). ALL the pickups are a little 'brighter' than I expected, the Bridge having quite some 'bite' that I had to tone down with amp EQ. Neck pickup is nicely rounded but to my ears didn't quite have the depth on the top 3 strings. Roll off the tone, run a bit, or even a lot, of Overdrive and its an instant Blues guitar. Very impressive for a cheap Axe. Middle is a good general purpose pickup, quite warm and also good when driven into a compressor and OD pedal for some crunch. Bridge is wonderfully twangy at the bottom end but a bit brittle on the top two strings, especially if you're working above 12th fret. I'm sure I will find an amp setting that helps in this regard. Its great for RocknRoll. The in between 'quack' settings can give you Tele type tones or Mark Knopfler too.
Apart from the terrible zinc trem block in the obviously low spec bridge unit, the general and overall quality level, playability and the sounds you can get from this guitar exceeded my expectations. By a LOT!! How Thomann can do it for the money beats me!

After reading the numerous praises and positive reviews on this guitar - I must say I am quite disappointed with what I got.

First off, the guitar gets out of tune after just a few minutes of soloing in the upper positions. The tuners cannot be tightened with a screw or otherwise adjusted, so you"re left at the mercy of their cheapness - and they are just mercilessly lousy...

Second, even after 4th thorough octave - action adjustments of all strings, some frets around the octave simply won't get in tune. You'll get a quite substantially out-of-tune note every time you play them. Funny thing is, frets a few positions above - play well and are in tune whrn played. T.m. the problem is non-fixable on my side.

Third' the hiss going out of the singlecools when the strings are not played is much more intensive than with other strats. I also own a Fender strat USA, with standard (not noiseless) pickups, - and the noise is much, much less prevalent + it gets nearly noiseless in the combined positions , which for some reason does not work with this strat clone

And fourth, the trem bar is totally useless, Even a slightest move with the tremolo- and you can tune the guitar again.

I had to return this guitar. My prrvious Harley Benton from Thomann - a PRS copy - was a much, much better piece...

First off, i have to admit that i ordered this guitar simply because i saw how cheap the price tag was.. And i loved the look of the vintage white colour.

Considering it was inexpensive, i wasn't expecting it to be all that great.

How wrong was I!

This guitar has a lovely maple neck with a pretty smooth rosewood slab board (not a cheaper thin veneer board!).

The neck shape is definitely not a slim or small neck. I'd say it's a medium to large C shape neck. Definitely a thicker and wider neck than my Charvel San Dimas guitars. Comfortable though! It's lacquered and shiny, but doesn't feel sticky.

Fret wire was all solid and level but a little dull looking upon arrival, but honestly.. at this price point i wasn't expecting them to be gleaming and shiny. I was totally fine with giving them a quick scrub using some 00000 grade wire wool, takes 5 mins and it did the job great!

The guitar is nice and lightweight, and it's actually very resonant. Harmonics fly out of this thing. Sustain is very impressive too!

The pickups sound very fat, i'd say they're probably overwound singlecoils. The in between positions (2 + 4) still get that glassy tone that we all know and love.

I can get some very convincing SRV and Hendrix tones using this guitar, but also it'll do the heavier sounds effortlessly. Yngwie and Blackmore tones are easy to cop with this guitar!

Hardware all seems solid, it has vintage Kluson style tuners which hold stable. Bridge seems pretty solid so far too.

Overall, i think this is an excellent guitar. Not just for the price, but generally! I own many other nice guitars from higher end brands, but I'll be using this guitar plenty for sure.

If you're not sure, i say just give it a shot and try one! For the price, it's really a no brainer!

I had read the reviews about these Harley Benton Stratocasters on the Thomann website and all the reviews seemed to be either glowing or at the very least favourable. Looking further afield I ventured onto youtube and yet again found mostly either glowing or favourable reviews. This made me curious. The Harley Benton guitars are cheap...so cheap that they can't possibly be that good! Can They?

Curiosity got the better of me and I decided to buy one, just to see for myself how good (or bad) these guitars are.

I got an interesting cream coloured one. I wanted a black one but that was on back order and I couldn't wait.

My cream ST-62 arrived very promptly, well packed and in one piece. That's a good start.

Before playing I inspected the guitar really carefully. What was the finish like? It was good, very good, flawless in fact!
The neck and the body are flawless (now I do know that this is not the case withal Harley Benton guitars as I have tried others, often they have minor flaws to the finish, but not this one). The only problem I found with the cosmetic appearance of the guitar was the cheap and badly cut scratchplate. It wasn't too badly cut, but it wasn't spot on either, some of the edges were a bit uneven here and there. This is a shame. I wouldn't send it back because of the scratchplate, but I think others have commented similarly and so I'd say to Thomann 'get that issue sorted'.

So, so far so good (apart from that scratchplate). Next to plug it in. Out of the box the guitar was fairly well set up. The action was slightly high for me, but just a tad. The intonation was mostly there are there abouts. I made a few minor changes and the guitar was more to my liking. Very good. So, onto plugging it in. This is where it got interesting...The Harley Benton had real punch and bite and a nice range and variation to each pick up. Not only this but the Harley Benton ST-62 is probably one of the quietest strats I have ever played in terms of hum from the pickups (there was virtually non-amazing!!).

The hardware is fine. Not the best (obviously at this price) but the guitar stays in tune pretty well. The wood is basswood, so again this will put some people off. It shouldn't. This guitar is better than guitars at three or four times the price. I'm not going to compare this guitar to others. Having played many strats over the years (and as the owner of 'real' Fenders) I am prepared to say that the Harley Benton ST-62 is as good a copy as you will find. With a few modifications it could be even better. I'll keep mine and try it in a few recordings. An extra bonus is that at this price you don't have to worry about knocking it around!

I was given my first guitar 31 years ago, and over that time I've owned a number of fender strat style guitars, and the times when I didn't have one I always missed the warm tones and comfortable feel. For me the strat, with it's particular features, the 5 way switch, out of phase sounds and tremolo that begged to be used but always takes your strings out of tune - these things always give me a warm feeling.

I've been without a strat or strat copy for some time, after moving to a Les Paul and a 335. I fancied a new one to noodle around on and play some Jimi style so I ordered this Harley Benton without thinking it would be that great. It arrived in 3 days, well packaged and safe with no dents or damage.

The guitar has a lovely finish, the action was a little high for me but easily corrected. THe intonation was spot on (the notes on the 12th fret were in tune with the open strings). The trem wasn't set up properly as the spring adjustments were screwed in all the way and the pivot screws were also screwed down tight. I set the guitar up and also lemon oiled the fretboard which was a little dry.

These are all minor things and something I do with every guitar I buy. THe strings were in good condition and didn't need changing, which is also something I usually do when buying a new guitar.

There is no fret buzz, all frets are smooth to play, no rough edges although I think I will polish them when I change the strings (again something I always do)

The scratchplate (plastic that hold the pickups and dials) wasn't cut perfectly and there were a couple of very minor flaws with it, but you'd need to look very closely and be very picky to notice them.

The tuners are ok and don't jump or lose tuning, although I may replace them one day, probably won't bother as they are good enough.

Sound is pretty lovely, especially cranked up and through a wah peddle. All in all I'm very happy, plays great and fast, feels good (good weight), stays in tune and works!

For this low price I'm amazed, really good guitar for the money. THanks for a lovely addition to my collection!

Not my first Harley Benton, already rated them as great practice/chilling/modifying guitars. Bought this one to leave lying around the house to jam and noodle on. Did not expect it to take the front spot in my guitar rack... now I need another one for leaving around the house!

Absolutely fabulous guitar to hear, pickups are punchy and lively, really the classic tone. Through a hot and overdriven 6V6 amp you get that real "Texas" sound, but it cleans up nicely too for some shimmering fusion or jangly indie riffs just as well.

Quality of the parts is good, very good even. Switch and pots are sturdy, the bridge is reasonable, tuners are a great vintage look and although there's the occasional dead spot I'm keeping them as-is to maintain the overall look and feel.

Perhaps not the most obvious of colour schemes - off-white with a tort guard and "rosewood" (Pau Ferro) neck, but it's really grown on me. The amber tint of the neck is well executed and makes this guitar look like it's several price brackets up compared to its similar-cost competitors.

A few other good tweaks - whilst most people will just pull it off, the slotted spring cover on the reverse allows for a great out-of-the box compromise between fast adjustment of the bridge and not getting things like clothes caught on the springs.

Also very lightweight but without sounding thin as a result - I could play this for hours (and I do!). Very easy player and holds its own against more expensive models.

Negative points for me primarily come from the fretboard. In fact, pretty much exclusively so. The wood was exceptionally dry (which I expect and was sorted quickly), but also the frets were very, very dull to the point of being overtly scratchy for bending. Likewise, the fretboard radius is flat, much flatter than most S-type guitars, somewhere around the 14" mark rather than even the more "modern" 9 of most guitars in this style, let alone the original 7.25".

Best points: sound, neck feel, weight, price.
Even Better If: Fretboard radius was smaller, frets were polished.

Very good guitar, technicaly seems like to be perfect, espesialy for 100Eur. price.
But my first impression was spoiled, by means, lets say "unjustified expectations". This guitar on the website looks really different from what I've receive, namely:
1) Body color....website shows white, "creamy white", and i've received almost Malmsteen strat color.
2) Neck....website shows varnish coated neck, i've received "natural matte"
3) Fretboard...on the website dark wood, like rosewood dark brown, i've received really not dark brown. And ofcourse, I inderstand that Pau Ferro will be brighter than rosewood.
So basically all these things have no influence on playabilitty, sound, quality, and guitar still good visually just different from what I've seen on the pictures when was ordering. And this is not what buyers like.
I think everybody will apreciate if my favorite music store (Thomann) will fix this issue.

What's going on? because I really can't get it... the body is lightweight basswood, really light, neck is slim and FAST. so comfortable. and the pickups are great! really surprised me alot. sounds so stratty! its enough for me without any mods. all of this for 100 EURO?! honestly, I can't believe this. I ordered many HB guitars, but by now, while all of them are great, this one is my favorite!
btw, best of all, Thomann won the headstock challenge. when designing ST style guitars, the headstock shape always falls short. HB managed to design one that's nicer than any other brand. that includes Fender! way to go guys.