Harley Benton SC-Custom III P90 Black

This is a very nice update to the HB single-cut range. It plays well, sounds good, came set-up out of the box very well too! Props to Thomann for binging this kind of quality at this price point.

I actually got a little flyer with mine with a photo of this guitar in it. Stating it was the model used in one of the photo-shoots. And it is actually the very same guitar in the pictures on the site. Very cool touch!

As far as the guitar goes, the nut is cut well. The frets are finished well, no sharp edges and they are nice and smooth. The finish and binding looks good. There are a few little spots in the binding to be found here and there, but that's when i really go looking for them. The fretboard material on mine is not as red as some pictures make jatoba look. It's more of a brown hue. The figuring on it is nice too. I'm sure it'll darken up a bit over time and with some more lemonoil applied.

Overall, well worth it!

I am old, I am spoiled, I own mostly custom made guitars. I own few HB guitars, and was buying/setting up HB guitars for my students.
Never ever happened to me (beside the promotional videos I saw) that HB guitar came to me flawless, and properly set-up/intonated. Uhm.

Now I bought this model for myself as testing platform for p90 pickups.
And wow (I thought I will never say that about any HB guitar) - this guitar is top quality. And for "no money". Maybe it was production mistake ;-)

VISUALS
It looks good. Really good. I could not find anything I could complain about. Good design (that shiny black with gold hardware looks expensive, looks posh, and it looks nice).
Very good finish! Clean. Well polished frets.

BUILD
Well build. Really well build. I was looking for some badly glued spots, or wrongly finished frets. Or even unevenly mounted tuners. Did not find nothing like that. This is very first HB guitar that is properly and very accurately built. This is on-pair with guitars above 1000 Euro.
Properly leveled frets with well made crowns and endings. This feels like human's touch, not simply production line. As I said - very well intonated and set up.
Oh, and the guitar has very comfortable neck, and easy access up to 24th fret (if you glue two additional), really well done!

SOUND
It sounds fantastic from the wood. Loud, proud, with great resonance.
I removed one star, because I hate those cheap Tesla pickups. They simply sound wrong.

CONCLUSION
A very nice and unexpected surprise from Thomann. As I said - I had many HB guitars in my hands, and they always had some flaws (from bad finish spots to humbuckers cavities going outside pickup frames, to badly scratched stainless steel frets. This one (I am not using the phrase "this model") is flawless. If not the pickups that I do not like, it will be probably THE BEST guitar under 300 Euro one can buy. If you think - lifetime stainless steel frets, it jumps up in the range to around 800 - 1000 Euro.
It is not "cheap guitar" (up to 250 Euro). With 300 it goes into my personal range 500 (260 - 500), but because of how it is finished, set up, how it looks and how it feels/plays - if you have that money and want short (Gibson) scale guitar with P90 pickups and stainless steel frets - it is a perfect buy.
(the above text is by no mean sponsored by Thomann)

Received flawlessly. This guitar is a real beauty, impeccably finished. The sound of the P90s is superb, with the midrange coming out a little more.
The neck clean sound is sublime, and the drives are excellent too. Suitable for many styles except for very heavy metal, in which case I'd recommend big, fat humbuckers. That said, it's very comfortable, no neck dive, very comfortable neck, the weight is right (I don't like guitars that are too light). It has nothing to be ashamed of when compared to the big brands, not at all! Excellent value for money, supplied with straplock, but you can use a traditional strap without any problem. The frets are well polished. Nice look, nice feel, nice finish, nice sound !