Harley Benton ST-20HH Active SBK

Bought this after not playing guitar for around 7 to 8 years, previously owned a number of guitars, but never anything you'd call "expensive". Bought this because the reason I started playing were the signature guitars of a certain man from Slipknot, and the price was very good - why not? Arrived in Croatia in 3 business days.

It amazed me that the overall quality of the guitar is much, much higher than the cheap strat copies of just a few years back. Everything is well set up, there are no build quality issues at all and the guitar looks very great to the eye. Frets are well-polished and the guitar needs just a bit of setting up right from the box. I feel like I got a very well-made instrument, especially considering the cost.

The neck is a bit thicker than I'd like, and the action came a bit high from the factory so I needed to adjust it, but other than that the neck is as strat-like as I remembered. Very easy to play, and looks very nice as well. The strings on it are interesting as well - they're .010-.046 which gives you the opportunity to tune a bit deeper right out of the box. I'd recommend buying a set of thicker strings if you plan on tuning to very low tunings of course.

The pickups are possibly the weakest part of the guitar, but they sound good if you don't go crazy on the gain and volume - probably the first thing that many people will replace, but for the price, I feel like they are much more than you could wish for. They can definitely sound very evil if that's what you're looking for - paired with the Neural DSP Gojira plugin it does sound surprisingly close to the real thing.

The fact that the battery compartment is routed already is a big plus, I feel like this makes me want to work on the guitar and modify it in the future.

In conclusion, it's not on the same level as the guitar it pays tribute to, and of course, it's not a perfect instrument. It is a very capable metal guitar, though, and a great platform for improvement. I also bought a replacement Graphtech Nut and some locking tuners for it - but will wait for these improvements when I change the strings.

All in all - amazing value not just for this price, I'd be happy to even pay 100€ more for it if it had a bit better pickups.

As the title suggests, this guitar is a well-deserved replacement for the Fender Jim Root Stratocaster EB BK. The outstanding thick sound with a beautifully scooped mid range tone(s) will delight all stoner/doom/hard&heavy guitarists. Usually any guitar with seriously hot pickups has big problems with the low end and the high end detrimentally on the middle. Not only is this not the case here, but the guitar produces a great balance of mid range tones that you will not be able to hear when using instruments with classic passive pickups, if you use tube amplifiers that tend to drown out the sharp mids at the expense of the bass, while the high registers tend to be muddy. In other words, just plug this guitar into any amplifier or modeling device and you will hardly need any EQ adjustments. Although it has a tremendous amount of sustain (much more than any similar instrument) thanks to the excellent HBZ active pickups, the guitar also sounds great with boost or green overdrive pedals which boost the drive channel of the amplifier, and it doesn't produce any more noise than any other guitar – I emphasize this fact especially since certain YouTube reviews were directed towards the overpowering active pickups that allegedly produced noise, which after my tests on Marshall, Mesa/Boogie, Orange, Blackstar tube amplifiers and a Boss Katana modeling amplifier turned out to be completely wrong.

However, what is particularly surprising in the case of this type of the guitar is its excellent handling of progressive rock and jazz (blues rock is implied), where you just have to be careful to reduce the bass due to the strong output. Completely surprisingly, the guitar, if the amp is set up properly, can even produce twang, and it has a particularly good intermediate position when both pickups are engaged, because then the sound is most similar to the Telecaster style of guitars.

Conclusion: the guitar deserves a pure 10/10 rating, taking into account parameters such as versatility, adaptability, incredibly easy-to-access battery compartment on the back, covering several musical genres, playability, extremely pleasant C profile of the neck - neither too rounded, nor too flat, while the roseacer fingerboard is the story for itself because in appearance and feel when playing it is closest to ebony and is a much better choice than the meranti, where fingers can get stuck if the neck is not polished properly. All in all, this guitar would, if it hasn't already, become a real hit among guitarists who are looking for a specific heavy sound, but who also need occasional excursions into progressive rock, indie, jazz, and even pop territory, since the guitar has enough power to sound solid even without the pile of effects that are normally needed to get the best out of a other "thin" instrument(s). When we add to everything written the simply unbeatable price, which is more than 13 times cheaper than Jim Root's original, it is clear to everyone that for very little money one can sound exactly like the desired expensive and perhaps even overpriced model, if not even better.

Special thanks to the Thomann company for delivering the guitar and solving certain situations with the post in my country.

It's perfect sounds and feels guitar.
It's delivered untuned, tuning was easer then on other guitars.
Guitar is really loud.
Neck feels really comfortable.
On bridge pickup it's nice metal guitar.
On neck it's sounds like oldschool blues.
Sustain is really long, i think it's because of fixed bridge.
I compare this with my jackson dinky and ibanez blazer, this guitar is better then jackson, and pretty close to ibanez.
It's looks fantastic. And feels the same.
Harley Benton, please create firerbird with the same specs.

i have recently taken up playing again after many years and was looking for a cheap but meaty sounding guitar for heavy metal playing.
the guitar comes well built and looks gorgeous with nice string heights to pickups already giving out some beefy sound and only just out of tune.
after about an hour of checking over the guitar i was mighty impressed,the neck is fast and smooth the pickups are really good especially after stretching the strings and re tuning a few times.
i tried this with my boss katana mk 2 100 and a few nice cheap pedals from Harley Benton and Donner.
The sound when using some smooth and subtle overdrive is insane for the price, i mean you simply wont get this sound any cheaper.
I have done some calculating and i really don't see how they can make money on this guitar and even today the price has gone down by like £2.
If you are in the market for a good looking amazing sounding heavy guitar i really cant say this enough "buy this thing now" before the back orders get longer and longer, i've just bought another in case anything happens to my 1st!

For the price this thing is out there as one of the best affordable guitars you can buy. I wasn't expecting the quality to be as good as it was. No sharp frets, nice bridge which intonates well, tuners do the job, nut does the job. I had to take the bridge off to restring as one of the holes had debris from drilling but was sorted within minutes. Pickups are great. Very very hot. I immediately tuned this to Drop B with 56-11s, tweaked the truss rod, adjusted the strings at the bridge and it plays fantastic. Nut needed filing but it's only plastic. I imagine this will need changing if you plan to drop tune long term. Stays in tune too!
All in all, it looks absolutely beautiful, plays really well with a slightly chunkier neck than I was expecting (definitely not a thin neck, more a nice comfortable C profile) and it was just over £130 with a gig bag.
Bang for your buck for sure.

As soon as it came out, it got my attention. A really cool matt finish, all in black, active pick-ups, a real metal machine, just what I needed. I expected good value for the money as with the previous harley benton guitars/gear I ordered.

Overall Impression:
I'm blown away by this one. The finish is excellent, it looks even better than on the photos. The pickups are definitly good with heavy distortion, but they are even inspiring to use with less distortion or even clean. It plays great, no rough edges or anything disturbing. A good weight, my Fender strat weighs more. I can't fault it. When I ordered this guitar I thought I would have to mod it later, bit suprisingly it is great out of the box.

Conclusion:
For the looks alone it's a bargain but it sounds and plays better than I would expect from a stock guitar at this pricepoint. I don't see how such a good guitar can disappoint.

I saw reviews of this guitar popping up all over YouTube and the price made it hard to pass up. The guitar isn’t perfect- there is some very minor splintering around the nut and when I placed some heavier strings on it (11-48 for drop C tuning) it caused the neck to bow quite a bit more than I was expecting. I was able to flatten the neck out using the truss rod but I’m not sure how it will hold up with even heavier strings. Also, I plan to switch out the tuners as they feel cheap.
However, the value of this guitar is amazing. It looks sleek and the pickups are hot and very well suited for heavier music. They sound great. At this point I don’t think you can find another guitar (especially if you’re into metal) that looks, sounds or feels as good as this guitar for close to $100. I have to give it 5 stars across the board because you would have to spend x3 as much to find a comparable instrument. It’s incredible as a starter instrument (my first guitar was $200 and was absolute garbage compared to this one) or as a modding platform (which is what I plan to do with it). You can’t go wrong at this price. Highly recommended!!