Better Than A BENTON?! | JET JS-450 Ocean Blue 

Just re-watched this. Hope you're well, brother.

There are companies that sell guitars for less that comes perfectly setup from the mfg. 🤷 No taking it anywhere and spending another $100 for a setup. Essentially another $100 to add to the price of that guitar 👎👎

Get a Kramer Vt211, has down best buck for the price. I got a new one at guitar center for $80. Mahogany body, Maple neck, Alnico Pickups and a bridge that stays in tune even with crazy dive bombs. The finish on these guitars is great also, no paint runs or orange peel at all. I got two and both had nice frets as well.

I'm interested to know where you are seeing stainless steel frets on instruments that are sub £300, because they can't be using very hard grades of SS rendering any advantage redundant.

Don't most of the Harley Bentons have SS frets? I know all their Fusion III guitars do and they run about $300-$400 US. @@ScienceofLoud

None of the HBs I've tried feature SS frets. Perhaps some of the higher end Fusions are spec'd out that way, but 2 things to consider there: 1 - as I stated above: not all SS is equal, there are about 150 different grades of SS - of different cost and material properties. For example 304 SS (the cheapest, most common grade) has a Rockwell hardness of 70 - Nickel Silver ranks at 73 on the same scale. If you are running into SS on low price instruments I'd caution if it holds any real advantage beyond corrosion resistance. I would guess HB are using 304 so they can print SS on the specs without having to incur the increased costs of time and tooling wear for a harder material. 2 - Thomann sell HB direct which skews their price range. Without the additional cut taken by distribution and independent retail stores HB seem to be able to offer a lot more for a lot less. Directly comparing features and price of HB and JET isn't an equivalence.

@@ScienceofLoud "Directly comparing features and price of HB and JET isn't an equivalence." no, but that's how you comparison shop and make a decision based on what features you value and at what price range you have budgeted. Someone might not care about SS frets and make the decision to buy that JET just because of the top/finish. And that's cool, whatever draws you to the instrument and encourages you to play it.

@@ScienceofLoudActually, all the fusions afaik comes with blacksmith brand stainless steel frets. Blacksmith have delivered fretwire for many known brands, Gibson, Fender and ESP, to name a few mentioned on their website. They produce both 304cu and 316L stainless steel. And from what I can tell, 304cu is generally considered stronger and more durable than most nickel silver, but there is quite a bit of variety within even the specific types of steel aswell. Same goes with nickel silver. But the blacksmith frets seem to be of decent quality. But it would be awesome if you wanted to do some tests with different fretwires. Like, which are the hardest to cut, or work with etc. 😎 Ps. The Harley Benton fusions also comes with alnico pickups. Even most of their cheaper ones. That said, I have a Jet js-400 in shell pink that I’m pretty happy with, after a bit of work. But Harley Benton still has them beat on features for the price. Although just the name and the logo, could make me go Jet.

Sounds like that 13 year old has a quality career ahead of them in graffiti inspired graphic art. I'd hire them.

@@ScienceofLoudI love my Jet guitars, logo, pickups...everything except the tuners, which i swapped out!🎸🤘

I was first made aware of JET by seeing them hanging on the wall in my local guitar shop. Later I met with a representative from the brand while at Guitar Summit last year, where we discussed possible collaboration. After much back and forth between the UK representative and JET HQ, my video fee was agreed and this guitar was shipped to me from the UK distribution for the purpose of review. The guitar as I received it is entirely representative of how any guitar shop would receive one in the UK. If a guitar shop were to place an order for X of these guitars they would be shipped from the same distribution centre and be received in the same condition. In fact if you are picking one off the wall of a guitar shop it is likely better set up than mine, as guitar shops tend to give all the instruments they receive a quick set up before putting them on display. They may even change strings - something I did not do with mine. There is no such thing as a special "review model" that gets sent out to reviewers. They are just taken out of warehouse stock and their value written off against promotional expense. As flattering as the suggestion is, I'm not important enough to receive any special treatment. You can find out more about how I utilise paid promotion with the links provided in the video description.

@@ScienceofLoud awsome reply! As much as there is not such thing as a "reviewer model" it's important to clarify imo. I don't trust a company I've never heard of not to send a picked from the "top shelf" or had a setup they don't normally do model to a reviewer who might be known. I trust you, you've proved your word is accurate and honest many times. But you can only report what you see and are told.

I understand being sceptical, but that has to be tempered with some rational thought - 'youtube reviewers being sent special product that the company has graded as better and is deliberately keeping in reserve for promotion in a designed effort to trick the customer into buying known lesser quality product' just doesn't make sense beyond conspiracy theory conjecture. Occam's razor would suggest that to orchestrate such a thing would be vastly more effort and cost the company more in time, man power, and storage space that the simpler (and therefore more likely) solution is that customers and reviewers alike are being shipped the first product off the shelf at their closest distribution by a worker who isn't paid enough to even question who the item they are picking is for. The artist relations manager, or social media coordinator who I'm talking to aren't the ones picking out the product - they are simply authorising a shipment in the system without payment being received. That's the extent of their influence; in almost all cases where the product is in production, that order will be processed like any other - by a minimum wage worker in a different building receiving instruction to ship one box to the address on screen. The only times it works differently are when I'm receiving a product ahead of official launch, in which case I may receive a pre-production or even prototype model. These are usually collected back at the end of the exchange - because they don't represent the final quality of the product and don't have serial numbers. When I did Boss HM-2W for example it was a 00000 serial prototype with a paint job I was warned to be careful with because it wasn't as hard wearing as what the final production enclosures would have. The other time it may be different is when items are sent out of 'loan stock' - The brand will have a number of items that are shipped around different places on loan, meaning I'll often get an amplifier after several other people have had it. These sometimes come dirty, or with problems if they haven't been serviced between loans. (My Orange AD30 which I purchased at deep discount from Orange's loan stock still has beer spilled down the back panel from a previous loan) Often the items that get put into 'loan stock' are B grade to begin with - they'll have some minor issue that means they can't be sold as normal stock and are assigned the duty of being shipped around to bands for music videos/tours, and to youtubers for making videos with because it doesn't matter if they get further damaged in the process. The reality is the products I receive are either going to be the same quality, or worse than what you'd expect if you bought one new.

@@ScienceofLoud I'm not saying they have reviewer models or your rep is saying to send a special model. All it takes is one person in that chain thinking "oh Colin! That's that RU-vid reviewer I'll make sure this is a nice one for him" or something similar. They don't even have to do it maliciously. You mention "loan stock" if those can come with more problems than normal it's probably worth mentioning too. Transparency is all I'm asking for, we can have our own opinions on what to believe that way.

"I'm not saying [ ] your rep is saying to send a special model. All it takes is one person in that chain thinking "oh Colin! That's that RU-vid reviewer I'll make sure this is a nice one for him" [ ]" - That's a direct contraction: You are literally saying that! Again, no one has the time or money to be doing that. Most products are processed through an ordering system, with the box picked and labelled by someone in a different building - sometimes even in a different post code - with no affiliation or knowledge of who it is being sent to. There is no shelf of nicer products to pick from even if they DID know who it was for, and my contacts are only authorising my payment and processing the order in the system. It's flattering that you think I'm that famous and can wield such power, but it's simply not reality. Here's the thing about loan stock: unless its a case where clearly the previous person spilled something over it (where it obviously isn't worth bringing up because it's not a flaw with the product), I don't know what flaws (if any) it may have - so it will be demonstrated exactly as it is, the same as if it were fresh stock the first time out the box. You talk about transparency still as if there is some secret that I'm keeping hidden from you - there isn't one. If I'm being shipped expensive demo gear it should be logical that it's probably loaner stock that other people have had prior, and such stock probably isn't the immaculate cosmetic condition you'd get buying one new. This isn't an issue with reviewer transparency, I'm needing you to meet me half way with some knowledge and rational thought. I can't be the only one doing the heavy lifting here - viewers have to bring there own sense of reason to the table instead of blind scepticism.

Yeah I agree on the sound and I'm sure it's the pickups because Colin usually dials in great tones.

That statement is quite literal: there is no subtext or hidden meaning. What do you think I've done here?

@@ScienceofLoud I honestly thought it was an Old Firm reference! Looks like I read too much into it.

The quality control is still not there Fender and Squier are superior

This isn't just any guitar equipment channel...

Sounds like elitism rather than objective criticism, but OK.

My 279 € Harley Benton CST 24 T (with SS frets) is everything than crap, it's same level as a Player Fender Strat or Ibanez AR.

You really are negative about everything these days, huh. Want to give me more constructive criticism about how I can make it better, rather than a blunt statement of disapproval? What is it you would like instead? Use your words.