Harley Benton SC-450Plus VB Vintage Series

jumped on the hype with Harley Benton, wanted to test out for my self if all the hype is indeed true. For most parts I understand the hype and find it hard to get this much guitar at this price point. Many compare it to Epiphone around the 500 - 800 Euro price point a comparison I don't think do the Epiphone justice. The feel and tone of the Harley Benton is not of the Epiphone 2020 inspired by series, which has better components overall, but is also 2.5 times more expensive.
Straight out of the box the SC-450 wasn't perfect, I had to polish the frets, lubricate the fretboard, adjust pickup height, strings and do an intonation of the guitar.
The volume pot for neck pickup was faulty, rolling to zero didn't turn off the guitar. Thomann quickly returned 50 euro for this mistake, which I'm happy with.
The guitar doesn't stay in tune that well, which I believe is down to the plastic nut.
The Roswell pickups are what they are, the bridge is bright and sound pretty good. The neck is too dark and muddy for my taste (sounds good coil splitted though).
I'm going to replace all electronics with better quality and replace the nut with a graphtech.
The pickups will probably also be replaced with Seymour Duncan JB/Jazz.

Overall build quality is good, nothing to point a finger at.

Seems like alot of negative for this guitar, but for a pricepoint of 160 euroes you get an excellent platform for personalizing a guitar. For beginners I'm sure this guitar will bring a lot of joy and excitement for years to come.

I had heard very good things about this guitar on youtube and through the reviews but I am positively dissapointed.

Although the guitar has a great tone there is a lot of work to be done of it in order that I can have fun playing it and keep wanting to pick up. For now my Yamaha pacifica V212 gets the upper hand every time because of the fact that:

* It's intonationed properly.
* The frets are correctly leveled.
* Low action and easy to play

All of these things are missing on the Harley Benton SC-450.

Negatives:

When I first got it out of the box, the pickup switches plate immediately fell off. I thought, alright, not a good sign but easy fix, and screwed it back on.

There is also a slight twist in the neck, it's not very much (not as bad as my Harley Benton ST-62 which I decided to send back, I'm still undecided on this one) but it's there.

The guitar is not intonated properly, and there are a lot of uneven frets that need leveling.

One of the pickups are not properly mounted and moves around if you touch it.

Positive:
This guitar has decently low action .

I really like having the option to coil split, just for the fun of it.

It sounds good and is was very fun to play until the faults become too much to overlook.

I don't recommend getting this guitar unless you are ready to put extra time into correcting the mistakes made in production. It's very unfortunate because the price of getting it fixed by a luthier is as much, if not more than what the guitar costs. There is atleast 2-3 hours worth of work needed on this guitar for it be playable, which is very sad considering that someone took the pride to put a tag with their name on it on this guitar (I wish I had kept it so I could put his name here, because he really did a terrible job on both my HB guitars).

But if this is what you want, I would recommend this guitar. Otherwise, be very strict in your notes when you order it of how you want it setup and perhaps they will do it to save the pain of having another guitar sent back.

Brilliant guitar at this price. My one was only let down by the tuning machines, with some being very difficult or jumping that makes tuning possible but not easy. Suggest you budget for another set, but even with that cost added still a good value guitar that could cost you twice as much elsewhere or possibly even more. (You can also contact Thomann's good Customer Service who will always try to resolve.)

The Roswell pickups are good and should not regarded as a no name low quality as they are not. Certainly here in the UK they are available from some dealers as an aftermarket replacement. From what I can determine Roswell have been making pickups for other brands for a number of years and have only in recent years decided to market under their own brand. The only thing is whether the type of music you play fits well with these pickups. I think most who likes blues, classic or hard rock, etc or like me plays a bit of easy jazz as well will. However not being a shredder a thrash metal player cannot comment on that aspect. Having had to, over the decades, coil tap/split my guitars that is an additional benefit these days on many guitars including this one.

The fretboard was well finished, no fret sprout with good intonation out of the box. The fret ends were nicely finished.
Yes they could be more rounded and polished, thouhg that is more of a personal preference than requirement, but they don't catch your hands. The neck for me was great; not being too thick or too narrow. The neck was also straight and did not require any truss rod adjustment. Not a big job if required but nice when you don't have to, particularly if you were a new player and don't have the experience. The nut looks plastic as a lot of low to medium price guitars are these days though it does the job well. If you want you can always buy a bone, graphite, Tusq, etc and replace it. Or you could just buy a much more expensive guitar but that would appear to be an overkill just to get a preferred nut.

The bridge and stop tail piece are chrome plated cast, and do their job well. They are much better than some I have seen on less expensive guitars over the years.

Overall a good instrument and I will have no hesitation in buying one of the other Harley Benton guitars especially at the prices that they are offered at. However if you are looking for a high resale price then you are unlikely to ever get that with a HB guitar, but if looking for a good instrument that will last and be good got gigging then look no further. If you are into brand status along with a good resale price then look elsewhere and expect to pay a hell of a lot more.

First of all, the reference pictures don't show how beautiful this guitar looks like in real life. Worth the money just for the looks already.
Pretty much arrived "ready to play" out of the box. Just tune up, plug it in and you will have a really nice piece to start with.

A few notes and thoughts:

Overall construction: A bit on the heavier side, but nothing too much. Everything is put together well and no obvious flaws on the paintjob or binding. The pickguard was a bit loose, but that's fixed simply by tightening the screw.

Pickups and the sound: Rosewell Alnico 5's sound great. Nothing bad about them to be honest (might replace them later on but that's a personal preference pretty much). All I had to do was adjust the pickup heights to my liking. Coil tap is a nice feature.

The neck: This is why I'm rating it only for 3* for quality. Don't get me wrong, for the money you get an absolute unit but just to be brutally honest, there are some minor issues that can be taken care of from the QC department. First of all, the frets were not polished at all - very grindy when bending the strings. This I fixed with some 0000 steel wool and general polishing. Secondly the fret ends around the 15th fret and upwards were quite sharp. Fixed by filing and sanding. It seemed like someone had already tried to file the frets around that area, as the binding on the fingerboard is a little bit damaged. Fortunately it's on the bottom side, so it doesn't bother me.
HB SC-Custom I bought a year ago had perfect frets for example. Might just have been the case of QC rushing with the guitars during the holiday season..

Tuners and tuning in general: The guitar seems to hold it's tuning quite well, tuners are tight and not slipping in any way.


Overall it's a amazingly great instrument for the price. After polishing the frets, dealing with with the sharp ends around 15'th fret and changing the strings (obvious first job for any guitar) it's something that well deserves a place in my collection. That's actually already 3'rd Harley Benton guitar for me and definitely not the last one.

Last year In December I ordered this HB SC 450 plus guitar for €159 during a Thomann promotion. As usual, it was delivered very quickly, a big thumbs up to Thomann for this!

Appearance:
The guitar seems fine in terms of finish, no high end finish but one should not expect this for that price, in any case there is certainly little to criticize here and for a budget guitar this is top!

Playing the guitar:
The adjustment of the guitar is less positive, the action of the bass strings is high and difficult to play smoothly. At the very least, a visit to a guitar technician is required, resulting in extra costs, that is if you cannot solve this yourself.

The problem:
Too high action of the strings with buzzing on the E and A bass strings at the level of the fifth fret. Adjusting the truss rod and lowering the bridge are not a solution here. The nut is nevertheless correctly cut and the height on the 1st fret is also good. I removed the strings, completely flattened the neck and checked all the frets with a fret rocker on the left, middle and right side of the fingerboard. I come to the conclusion that 14 frets are placed too high in one or more places of the fingerboard. After a few hours of careful filing and finishing everything was aligned and I could set the action of the strings very low without any noise. Now this is a great playable guitar!

The question is..
Is this a guitar that a beginner can buy with confidence? Yes, if you are willing to spend some extra money on a skilled guitar technician to make the guitar optimal. For the purchase price and these extra costs you will have a very good LP style guitar anyway at a very affordable price. I understand that this can be an additional burden for a beginner to look for a guitar technician and is a barrier to purchase. if the problem is too big for you, Thomann's excellent service still gives you the option of returning the guitar and ordering another one. All copies do not have the same shortcomings, there will always be something that is not perfect, this can also be the case on a more expensive guitar.

For a more experienced guitarist that is not shy to work on the instrument..
If you can solve this yourself, this is an absolute bargain because this guitar also sounds good and offers several setting options.

I definitely recommended this guitar!

This is the second LP type guitar I've had from Thomann recently. The other was the SC400 SGT (gold top). I seem to have similar visual QC issues with this one and I'm deciding whether to keep it or not.

Here's a few observations

Weight: (They vary a lot apparently, even for the same model) I would say this is on the lighter side for a mahogany body.

Looks: From a distance the vintage burst looks great. When you get close you can see every wood join in the body, a very visible scarf joint at the neck. The ivory binding has dark paint flecks in various places.
These are minor annoyances and the SC400 had similar paint issues.

In terms of fit and feel, the neck feels really nice, no sharp frets. The frets themselves though are badly in need of a good polish, They feel scratchy and unpleasant when you bend a note. This is not helped by the cheap included strings which feel poor.

Tuners work, no dead spots, quite responsive. However they look and feel really cheap. Really, rather than being 'authentic' in look it would probably be better to just stick better tuners on there, even if they don't look the part. The plastic feels really like it won't last. But we'll see.

For me the real QC let-down is the misaligned tuner fitting on the rear of the headstock, I'm not a carpenter but given a symmetrical headstock I think I could do a better job of lining them up. No two of the three pairs align. I'm not sure what angles or means of alignment were used but I'd question it.

My SC400 SGT has the same issues (paint bleed and misaligned tuners) The SC400 was worse and I returned it. This one I will play with for a day or two before deciding. Although Thomann's service is great, returning guitars and waiting for refunds is a pain, so we'll see.

It's one of the weird things with Harley Benton guitars. Some are great for the money (my TE-90 FLT cost 20 euro more and there is a large chasm in quality difference). Even the ST-62 I bought at the same time as this SC450 Plus has better finish.

Overall Harley Benton guitars have been good for me, but a little tightening up of quality and consistency would be good. It's not unreasonable to expect that if you spend 150 euro on one HB guitar and it's great, that if you buy a different 'model' for the same price that the quality is equally good.

Will see with this SC450 Plus, will update review when I've decided whether to keep.

Update: returned the first one. Eventually ordered a replacement. This one looks better overall, but once again the tuners are misaligned!! This was QC passed. It seems like whoever is making these SC guitars doesn't care about quality, and that Thomann are willing to overlook this, because the guitar is a "certain price". I've bought cheaper LP copies than this which didn't have these issues. So it is possible if there is the will. And I'm afraid the old "look at the price argument" doesn't stack up. If I was a guitar repairer/tinkerer/luthier, I'm sure I would just shrug my shoulders at this, but I'm not. I'm trying to be a guitar player, and only have time to learn to play, or learn to repair, I can't do both.

As borne out by my recent experience, sone HB models arrive with few or any flaws, some with lots. It seems, a the moment that it's the LP copies that are problematic. I returned a problem SC-400 gold top, SC450-PLus and I have a SC-450 P90 which has so many issues that it's a bit of a joke, Thomann offered me a substantial discount to keep that one.

Update, I ordered a replacement about a month later and the second one was much better. Happy to hold onto the second and it is now one of my favourites

Bought this guitar during cyberweek, after reading very good reviews about it.

I was excited when the box arrived and rushed to open it. Upon opening the box the colour was a bit off, it's more reddish instead of brown so be aware of that. For me that wasn't a deal breaker. Upon further inspection of the guitar a few major issues immediately arose.

First of all, one of the bridge saddles was not screwed at all and it was floating. The screw was ready to fall out of the hole and the saddle was held in place just by the tension of the string (I fixed that and spent some time intonating the guitar again as none of the strings was correctly intonated)

This brings me to the second issue, the tuners. Two of the tuners are slipping, more specifically the A and the G string tuners. From the two, the G string tuner slips the most and tuning stability is not good. If I'm being honest it is a nightmare to tune.

Finally there are at least 8 popped up frets/uneven frets. Because of that, I am getting a huge amount of fret buzz, especially in the heavier strings. The only solution that doesn't require a visit to a guitar store, is to raise the action to the point of it being unplayable.

I should note that the other guitars I've purchased from Thomann was perfect (st-62) and I didn't even have to intonate it! I don't know what happened with this one.

At this point I was extremely disappointed with the guitar and I contacted thomann to see what were my options. I asked for an extension of the return period because I was leaving for Christmas holidays and there was no way I could ship it in time. They refused and I asked for a partial refund to cover some of the fretboard work needed. They offered me 20 euros and they said that's the Max they could refund... Suffice to say, I wasn't pleased with that and I consider the refund to be a joke.

Tl;dr My guitar arrived with major issues, and because of Christmas holidays I wasn't able to return it in time for the 30 day back money guarantee. Asked for a partial refund and got 20 euros to fix the bridge saddle, tuners and level the frets of the guitar...

I'm a passionate Les Paul lover and sunburst afficionado, and this guitar looked just insanely pretty for the ridiculous price so I impulse bought it to see what it's actually worth as an instrument. In short:

- Out of the box, it's a very decent beginner's instrument so beautiful that you'll want to pick it up again as soon as you put it down.

- With a bit of care you can make it even prettier by addressing the minor blemishes that are to be expected from a guitar in this price range.

- If you're prepared to invest a little more money for a couple of replacement parts and quite some time and elbow grease to really upgrade it, you'll be as amazed as I am now.

Pros:
- gorgeous looks;
- unbelievable price point;
- very comfortable neck, much more accessible on the high end than a regular Les Paul;
- very decent tuners and stop bar tailpiece;
- warm PAF flavoured alnico pick-ups;
- robust and reliable selector switch;
- fine and smooth volume pots;
- very nice pot knobs;
- good quality nut;
- very nicely machined, filled and lacquered mahogany body and neck;
- real massive maple cap with fine flamed veneer;
- overall quite good setup out of the box.

Cons:
- stock Tune-o-matic bridge unworthy of this nice guitar;
- rather raspy frets and quite coarse fretboard spoiling bends and vibratos;
- cheap looking plastics;
- minor dents and blemishes on the otherwise nice finish;
- smooth but not very articulate tone pots;
- some loose screws here and there;
- a bit rusty strings out of the box.

The list of pros is quite amazing for the price you pay, and I could address most of the list of cons with a bit of effort. In something like 5 hours of work, I did the following:

- I replaced the bridge and its posts with a Gotoh GE103B-T C kit (33¤ at Thomann);
- I applied Loctite to all screws around the body (cavity covers, strap pins, pick-up rings) and tightened them;
- I replaced the thin plastic washers under the strap pins with thicker rubber ones;
- For my personal aesthetics preferences, I replaced the switch plate (the "RHYTHM/TREBBLE" one) with a finer looking Gibson spare (4,88¤) and the bulky hexagonal securing nut of the switch with a leaner round and dented one;
- I filed down the protruding molding flash from plastics like the pick-up rings and the jack socket cover;
- I filed the edges of the trussrod cover to an angle so that the 3-ply structure (black-white-black) became apparent to look much nicer;
- I very lightly wet-sanded the entire fretboard smooth with lemon oil and 600grit sandpaper, debuffed with 1000grit steelwool and soaked in lemon oil overnight;
- Using fret rubber, I polished up all frets to a shiny finish, removing the dull and raspy coating they came with;
- To take full advantage of the beautiful vintage burst around the whole body, I removed the scratchplate and plugged and painted the screwholes to conceal them;
- I restrung with Dean Markley Custom Light 9-46;
- and I set up action, intonation and neck relief.

The end result is such that I must give the guitar a total of five stars no less. With the exception of the tone pots which I did not bother to replace, every item on my cons list was addressed. Now the guitar looks amazing, and even more importantly it plays unbelievably smoothly and well. From a playability and smoothness aspect it is actually perfectly on a par with my original Gibson Les Paul Standard (how ridiculous is that!!!), and comfort-wise it is even better because of the less bulky and more accessible neck joint. The pick-ups have less bite and edge than today's Burstbuckers but they still do a very decent job capturing the vintage alnico humbucker feel.

Overall:

- If you're a beginner, this is a very good choice to start with.

- If you're a more advanced player, it's an equally good choice. Just make sure you polish the frets and sand the fretboard nice and silky, and you'll get the axe to an unbeatable level of smoothness and comfort, perfectly fit for practice, studio and stage use.

- And if you're passionate, this is the perfect beautiful guitar to upgrade into a monster. If you do nothing else but the mods I made, you will still have spent less than 200¤ in total, and what you'll get is a guitar that looks, feels and plays at least as good as instruments worth six to ten times this price. Honestly, mine easily beats Custom Epiphones any time, and it neither looks, nor feels cheap even if I compare it to a Gibson.

With such value for money, buying a setneck mahogany Harley Benton SC is just a no-brainer! Everybody should go for it!

Long(ish) story, but please stick with it as I had to.

I ordered this guitar just before Xmas (2019) and was a bit gutted when it arrived. The guitar had obviously taken a knock in transport leaving the bridge bent and the rear strap button loose, with cracked paint around the button. I was straight onto Thomann who offered either a discount and replacement parts, a replacement guitar or a refund. I decided to put up with the minor faff of a replacement. One other minor gripe was slightly offset tuners leaving more tuning key exposed on the underside of the guitar than at the top.

Onto the second guitar and after my initial experience left me dubious as to what I'd receive I have to say I'm stunned. I've only played a few Gibson LP's when I went to buy one 15 years ago in a local store and walked out with a US strat...as you do. I liked the LP but couldn't say I liked it enough to spend £1500+. As well as the strat I also own a Squier vintage modified tele, Gibson SG special, PRE SE custom 24 and in my time have owned an LTD EC-1000 (great sounding but couldn't stop it buzzing without expensive work) and an Ibanez hollowbody artcore thingummy and a different SG special but I've still always wanted an LP style guitar. The quality of this guitar is up there with all my keepers and yet it's the cheapest guitar I own. This is not a good guitar for £140, it's a good guitar full stop. You know how some guitars feel ok and others feel like a proper musical instrument that you really want to play. If all Harley Bentons are this good (as long as they haven't been dropped from a great height) I'll be getting a few more. Very happy today and very pleased with how Thomann dealt with my issues. My intention was to swap out the pickups for a SD 59 and JB but now it's in my hands I don't feel the need. The neck is very glossy which I knew wouldn't be to my taste but that's an easy fix with a few sheets of high grit paper and a splash of water. Seems a shame cause the neck looks so nice. Strings are OK ish (not that that matters as new strings is always job number one) and frets don't feel rough as some others have stated. The fretboard seems a shade lighter than standard rosewood but it has a beautiful grain and looks all the better for that. The tuners do their job and it stays in tune.

One day I'll actually learn to play these things :)