Show me your Harley Bentons - I'm thinking of investing....

Roland

themeinside said:

(Also they're almost exclusively Indonesian these days...)

I thought that I’d repeat this point. This is a thread about Harley Benton, who source guitars from factories in a number of countries.

Jetsam1

So. Now they are going upmarket. The new 7 strings. Look good in the pictures.

Anyway most Far Eastern guitars are all sourced from the same factories anyway.

CeeJay

l'll be ordering one of these as soon as the dust settles. I will probably treat it to a nice P90 from one of our own forum Pick Up Makers.

YellowLedBetterMan

CeeJay said:

l be ordering one of these as soon as the dust settles. I will probably treat it to a nice P90 from one of our own forum Pick Up Makers.

Genuinely these are better than most "budget" attempts at a LPJ double cut. I've tried Vintage, Revelation, Epiphone branded ones and these ones had by far the best neck.

One thing I do remember though is they're heavy as fook. Ymmv with the specific bit of wood you end up with.

CeeJay

YellowLedBetterMan said:

CeeJay said:

l be ordering one of these as soon as the dust settles. I will probably treat it to a nice P90 from one of our own forum Pick Up Makers.

Genuinely these are better than most "budget" attempts at a LPJ double cut. I've tried Vintage, Revelation, Epiphone branded ones and these ones had by far the best neck.

One thing I do remember though is they're heavy as fook. Ymmv with the specific bit of wood you end up with.

I'll just be grateful if the body is heavier than the headstock. I have an ongoing battle with an Epi SG!

minefields

lysander said:

minefields said:

Mine, I know it looks like another more expensive brand but I didn't want to spend £3k plus on that.



Stainless Steel frets, Ebony fretboard, Wilkinson 50iik trem, locking tuners, Nu-Bone nut, and a really nice satin finish on the neck. I replaced the pickups with Iron Gears and it sounds great.

The setup on the guitar was as good as I have seen on a new guitar, no sharp frets, 1.5mm action on low E at 12th fret and no fret buzz at all, relief was dead on and trem was floating a perfect too. Pickups were fine, nothing special but everything else was excellent.

Really happy for £250.

What’s the neck like on that?
I had a one of their Wilkinson trem HSH roasted maple fusion previously and while it was overall very good, the profile was pretty chunky and not really to my liking.

I am not great with judging neck sizes and shapes, but I tend to prefer thinner necks. It's not super thin as the slim-taper on my Gibson SG but it certainly doesn't feel really chunky to me.

Heartfeltdawn

Gizmo said:

Let me ask you this,if you next door neighbour burnt down your house due to thier carlessness and they sold the bricks and timber for a living to help you rebuild it would you buy from them ???

Tell me again how that special USA-GB relationship started all those years ago... 

carlos

My used Fusion 2 arrived today, it was pretty mint with tags and everything. What can I say? Wonderful guitar.

I'd put it against a charvel which costs three times as much. Only weak point might be the pickups which are fine but didn't blow me away. The finish is fantastic, frets are immaculate, and it comes with well rated third party parts like the nubone nut and the Wilkinson trem. For the price I don't think this is making them much money, probably a way for them to upgrade the brand.

For the record mine was made in Indonesia. 

robgilmo

johnhe said:

Gizmo said:

carlos said:

Gizmo said:

I have been thinking of buying one of the Fusion II Floyds in red or purple,but part of me says you dont need anymore guitars and i also think anything i buy in lock down now will only help add to future orders from china once this is all over and im fucked if they should beifit from this.

jfc

Humm so i take it that you do not think that millions of people on lockdown ordering millions more un-need items that are mostly manufactured in China will not benefit China in anyway when retailers seek to replace stock.....interesting but

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I don’t want to get banned, or incur a warning by telling you how I really feel about your post. But to be polite, I find it ill informed, short sighted, uneducated, xenophobic and just daft. I have plenty of Chinese friends, and have visited China many times. I’ve always found Chinese people to be exactly like European people (and all other people) - they just live in a different country and speak different languages. But they work hard, try to do right, try to get ahead, provide for their families etc. 

Yes, the virus seems to have started there. But we are a long way from knowing for certain that it was deliberate. But don’t let that stop your own preconceptions stop you from jumping to conclusions.

If it was deliberate, the lab in Wuhan imported it from a lab in Canada, so its Canada that created it.

JMP220478

carlos said:

My used Fusion 2 arrived today, it was pretty mint with tags and everything. What can I say? Wonderful guitar.

I'd put it against a charvel which costs three times as much. Only weak point might be the pickups which are fine but didn't blow me away. The finish is fantastic, frets are immaculate, and it comes with well rated third party parts like the nubone nut and the Wilkinson trem. For the price I don't think this is making them much money, probably a way for them to upgrade the brand.

For the record mine was made in Indonesia. 

Whats the weight like - as really dont need a decent weight Suhr PT replica for next to nothing ... :-)

MattP

I have one of the (not quite) TV Yellow DC Junior types, and its so good its annoying. I bought it because i wanted a junior, but also - after 25 odd years of playing - I decided I wanted to learn how to do basic fretwork. So I bought all the bits to allow me to do that and ordered the DCJr and it arrived with spot on fretwork - genuinely better that I've had on guitars umpteen times the price. 

That little guitar lives in a stable with quite a few high end guitars; historic Les Pauls, a replica sunburst Les Paul (by he who shan't be named) and, whilst it's clearly not better, it absolutely isn't shamed by that company. I'm not sure if i got a good one or they're all like this (never played another HB), but if this is indicative of their general quality, i'd have another in a heartbeat.  

Plus, it was made in Indonesia (in case that helps..)

carlos

JMP220478 said:

carlos said:

My used Fusion 2 arrived today, it was pretty mint with tags and everything. What can I say? Wonderful guitar.

I'd put it against a charvel which costs three times as much. Only weak point might be the pickups which are fine but didn't blow me away. The finish is fantastic, frets are immaculate, and it comes with well rated third party parts like the nubone nut and the Wilkinson trem. For the price I don't think this is making them much money, probably a way for them to upgrade the brand.

For the record mine was made in Indonesia. 

Whats the weight like - as really dont need a decent weight Suhr PT replica for next to nothing ... :-)

Don't have scales but I had a feel of it next to my Ibanez RG550XH and it felt pretty much same weight which is pretty light.

After sleeping on it and looking up the specs on the pickups, they are firmly in the PAF range, which might explain why they sounded a bit bland to me earlier. Most of my pedals are set for higher output bridge humbuckers so I'll have a few tweaks. OTOH, the coil split on the bridge sounds really nice.

robgilmo

Do you think modern factories might account for them being so good? My guess is the machinery in the Gibson and Fender factories must be well past its sell by date by now.

carlos

robgilmo said:

Do you think modern factories might account for them being so good? My guess is the machinery in the Gibson and Fender factories must be well past its sell by date by now.

No idea. But this is a £260 guitar that has stainless steel frets with perfectly rounded edges and immaculate binding and fretboard markers. Those are usually the things that go wrong in the Squier/Epiphone range.

robdynamite

Funny this thread has cropped up. i'm really tempted by their EX 84 explorers in white. Currently out of stock sadly but I really fancy some daft thrash vibes but I don't want to spend big money for the itch to be scratched.

6StringStrummer

Reading the threads I do not see everyone changing the pickups, is that because they do not need to be changed or in the case of the 335 model it is too hard?   Unfortunately I am downgrading and I am looking at the HB 35.

munckee

6StringStrummer said:

Reading the threads I do not see everyone changing the pickups, is that because they do not need to be changed or in the case of the 335 model it is too hard?   Unfortunately I am downgrading and I am looking at the HB 35.

I did change the pickups in my e35 (predecesspr to HB35)  I play mostly clean and the seymour duncan's I put in were a noticeable upgrade.  The originals were fine, being ceramic's they sounded better driven than clean to me.

MattP

6StringStrummer said:

Reading the threads I do not see everyone changing the pickups, is that because they do not need to be changed or in the case of the 335 model it is too hard?   Unfortunately I am downgrading and I am looking at the HB 35.

Granted I don't have a huge amount of experience with p90s, but the one in the junior sounds fine to me - no plans to change it. 

I don't, however, much like the Roswell logo written on it, but that's a cosmetic complaint and not something I'd change the pickup to sort. 

Jetsam1

Any more recent experience with the LP types? Been window shopping............ I know!!

£155 for mahogany and maple cap.............. If it is even close to Epiphone Standards that is a good deal.

guitargeek62

robdynamite said:

Funny this thread has cropped up. i'm really tempted by their EX 84 explorers in white. Currently out of stock sadly but I really fancy some daft thrash vibes but I don't want to spend big money for the itch to be scratched.

Have you seen the new EX 76s?

https://www.thomann.de/gb/search_dir.html?sw=Ex-76&smcs=4568c1_3084