Harley Benton SC-Special TV Yellow

Highly recommended! What a great take on the classic LP special.

Bought this because last week I bought the HB DC-Junior faded cherry single p90-pickup guitar. I was so impressed with that Indonesian made guitar, that when I saw this was available and made in Indonesia (probably the same company) I knew I wanted it.
I've been playing, building and fixing guitars for over 50 years. I went over this guitar inch by inch when it arrived. It's FLAWLESS.

The finish, fretwork and setup is spot on. Intonation is almost perfect (I'll be setting that up later when the guitar gets used to the humidity here in Nashville TN) . The nut is cut perfect and feels like bone. The neck is straight with no dead spots. Pickups sound great with minimal buzzing, so probably good shielding inside. Pots sound good and spin well. Fretwork is very nice with no sharp edges and reasonably polished for this price point. The fretboard wood looks and feels exactly like ebony - really! All the side markers are in the right position and spaced perfect. The wraparound bridge is well made and solid as a rock. Plays like butter and sustains well. Good balance, no neck dive when you hold it.

Like others.. I'm astonished at the value you get for the price. I know guitars, this guitar literally is a good as guitars costing thousands more. More importantly, it is really fun to play. It sustains and sounds good "unplugged" which makes you want to play it more.

Note: The finish is not "satin". It's gloss (just like in the photos). Mustard color is exactly like in the photos. Also, I'm pretty sure the neck is one of the "fat" necks that HB sells on their "Jr" models, because it's thicker than my DC-junior. Guitar weighs 6 pounds 14 ounces (almost 7 pounds). Looks like the body could be 2 or 3 pieces of mahogany glued together.

I'll be doing a full "set up" on this guitar later.. but I won't be changing much. Someone who knows nothing about setting up electric guitars could pull this out of the box, tune it up and play it with no changes.

Cons: This guitar is new and shiny and sparkly. It's covered with polyurethane and not nitro. So if you are looking for a vintage look, this is not the guitar for you.

Hats off to Harley Benton and Thomann regarding this guitar, quality control is spot on.

Update Dec 2020. This thing acoustically rings like a bell! My personal test of any electric guitar. You can always swap pickups... but if a guitar is dead you can't do much about it.

This guitar is "Alive"

This is my first Harley Benton electric 6 string guitar. To give perspective, I currently have a Gibson Les Paul and both a USA Fender Tele and a Strat. I have also had other Les Pauls and tried both a Gibson Les Paul Special and the Epiphone Les Paul Special. This Harley Benton SC Special is incredible and whilst it is not without a couple of issues, it’s playability and sound easily compare with any of my Gibson and Fender guitars. I bought it expecting to return the guitar, but I wanted to understand what all the hype was about Harley Benton. At the same time, I had a Harley Benton Special Hybrid delivered.

The Hybrid is definitely a budget guitar and is vastly inferior to the SC Special. It’s amazing what an extra €50 difference in price gives you. I sent the Hybrid back after 5 days! So what’s great about the SC Special?

The neck - wow! Incredible and with lemon oil, a slight 1/2 turn of the truss rod, fret cleaner and new D’Addario strings, the neck is a dream to play. I did adjust the bridge height to reduce the string height, but it was pretty close and playable when it arrived.
The P90 pickups are very responsive and are better sonically than my Sunbear handmade pickups. I was not expecting that. Yes, the pickups were set far too low and a long way from the optimal distance from the strings, but now they are set correctly, these P90’s sing!!

The negatives - whilst the pickups are fabulous, I did have to add and screw a piece of wood under each pickup to allow the height screws to reach the right distance. Unfortunately, the screws are too short to raise the pickups high enough and the screws simply pop out when they are raised. I have informed Thomann about this flaw.
Secondly, the bridge is not easy to intonate. It’s great that it has individual saddles for each string for fine tuning, but it’s still difficult to get absolute accuracy.
The tuning pegs are surprisingly good and I won’t be changing these as they work as well as any of my USA made guitars tuning pegs.
So you will need to make some adjustments and do some work on the guitar (or take to a luthier) but this €249 guitar is a keeper and stands it’s ground with guitars 7 times it’s price. I have gigged 3 times with it and I love it