Is Harley Benton Still A Good Value? 

So I used to own a lot of Harley Bentons and in general you get a good bang for your buck. Of course you can be lucky and get a incredible guitar or unlucky and get a pile of firewood. QC seems to be a bit like a lottery. As I'm german I don't care and just send it back if it's bad. Here Thomann customer service is just awesome, especially compared to most other german vendors. There are a few models that blow the competition out of the water. The SC 550 IIs for example. Comparable Epiphone Les Pauls just don't exist and to get close you'll have to pay around $1000. Generally I think we reached a point where it only comes down to how comfortable you feel with a specific guitar. If setup properly nearly every guitar over $100 will get the job done. A bit of a correction: Jin Ho is Korean, not Chinese, the produce the Wilkinson tuners as well as a ton of OEM tuners (Harley Benton, but also a lot of other brands.) They usually don't sell under their own brand, but all those Guyker, Kaines and what not locking tuners that look exactly the same besides the logo. They are pretty good.

The Harley Bentons from Indonesia (fusion III and fusion T) seam the best value. Fair warning, yes it is a trade off, you will get some excellent value (steel frets, locking keys), but you will need to do some work yourself. Not for novices, but a nice option if you are capable of re-pocketing the neck, polishing the frets, and setting up action and intonation, yourself. The hard roasted neck is not for everyone, it gives a super snap to the instrument (not for everyone, again), but I personally love them!!

Didn't really enjoy any of the Harley Bentons I bought, but they are a decent bang for your buck. I just didn't connect with any of them. Nice work as always.

I have bought about twenty five Harley Benton's and I love the quality and customer service. I have only had to return a couple due to freight damage but not quality issues. There is a trick to getting the best value in buying from Thomann. The first tip is to never buy "one" guitar as the shipping is about $84.00. You can buy two and the shipping will be the same. Additionally, always buy a "B stock" if available as they are cheaper. The flaws are minimal and you get the same warranty. There are some models that do not compete as well with other brands but they blow the competition away in general. I have bought many other brands of guitars and for the money, HB is hard to beat. There are some Amazon guitars that are a good alternative such as IYV. It is common for a used guitar to sell for about 50-60% of the new price and this has been my experience, however, I have sold several of my Harley Benton's for what I paid including shipping. There are so few that come on the market on Facebook Marketplace and they are easy to sell. If you buy a Fender MIM Player at $850.00 you will only get $450.00 in the used market.

I own 9 Harley Benton guitars. They are in most cases excellent quality guitars, regardless of the price. Many of my HB tuners are Wilkinson, Grover or Gotoh. Quite good in most cases.

I need that 7 string. That'll make the wife and kids happy. 😂

Love Harley Benton guitars. I recently got the black EX84 EMG60 EMG85 pro series (the roswell actives are every bit as good pups, I just wanted the EMGs because I always have.) Ebony fretboard, locking grovers (Jin-Ho are very solid btw), Tusq XXL nut, Tone pros bridge and tail, and full size pots, not the small ones. All for under $500 shipped from Germany, and it took less than a week to get to me. Amazing guitar.

I bought my first HB about 6 months ago, the MR Modern. Picked it up from their US Reverb store for $285. Stainless frets, split humbuckers, Univox/Mosrite looks with a LOT of character and vibe. Immediately became my #1.

I have the HB H35,and love it. (Had it over a year)

All the HB are shipped from Germany and pass a QC check in there (that doesn't mean you can get a bad one). But the don't ship from the factory

Great info and great video, keep them coming.

Awesome video i have 30 harley benton axes they rock

My st20 with Wilkinson tuners and pick ups is absolutely fantastic for the money

I came across a brand new Jet guitars JT-300 telecaster at Horn Trader in OKC a while back and it was surprisingly nice. So nice, I thought about it for a few days and went back and offered them $170 out the door, thinking it's cheap enough I could do some upgrades etc and have something that felt/sounded good. Once I got it home and played with it a bit, I am shocked to say that it's perfectly playable as-is and sounds just fine. I love the neck on it and it's just a good looking guitar. I may yet experiment with swapping the pickups out for something else just because I've been wanting to tinker around with that, but the stock pickups aren't terrible. Shockingly good guitar for such an inexpensive price.

Basically $100 of shipping (+taxes) is what had always kept me from trying out the brand. Every price I see has to have +$100 added and it usually takes it about $50 over what I'm willing to pay for what is offered. The reverb store usually had a very limited selection considering everything they offer and seem to have had that $100 added to it already anyway (or at least $50- $75) and then pay reverb shipping on top. When I see something I like used on ebay I'll try them out finally.

Your comment about returns being difficult to Thomann is totally incorrect. I recently purchased an ST model with a problem with a pickup. I contacted Thomann and they immediately recommended that I return the guitar. They provided me with a return label, prepaid, and the next day I brought the guitar to the local post office for shipping. In a reasonable period of time I had my replacement. No problem here.

The big shipping charges is what keeps me from getting a HB but there's a couple I'd like to get.

The biggest drawback I've found about Harley Benton is that the Reverb store doesn't offer everything in the line up. I've been trying to get a hold of a DC Junior, but they only seem to be offered on the Thomann website. The other drawback is that that every DC Junior I've seen detailed in RU-vid videos seems to have the intonation be just slightly off. Maybe that's what's coming through on the video, but something about it just seemed not right. By they way, I'm really looking forward to part 2 of your Hamer documentary.

Harley Benton has some of the best headstocks I've seen on budget priced guitars. I also don't mind their name, despite most people saying it's a dumb name. It's a little confusing because I'd probably assume it's a motorcycle company, but that's not a big deal. They probably don't have Harley Davidson in Germany so they might not know about the similarity in brand names

Thanks for this mate - great vid 😎👍 Awesome audio too 👌 Here in the UK, Jet Guitars have been slowly grabbing a fair chunk of the budget/starter guitar market the past 2 years. I've had a few - the quality and features set is unbeatable (imo). On their way to the US now I believe - check em out (JS 400 👌) I've also had 6 Harley Bentons - the shipping/returns is a non issue here in the UK. HB make great quality guitars with impressive specs for the price (Imo) but ultimately, I prefer the Fender 9.5" radius, which HB don't offer. So it's Jets all the way for me these days. Cheers from Scotland! 🍻 The End 🙈

This came out at the perfecr time. I've just been considering getting one

Great Video!!! Kudos to Thomann & the Harley Benton line. They are directly responsible (In my opinion) for the "Majors" stepping up the quality of their entry level guitars. I have 2 Strat Style Harleys. I bought both of them in January 2020 because Fender was out of Classic Vibe Stratocasters and Then were going up on the price when the next shipment was due. For that price I bought an ST-20 Vintage White & The DLX Swamp Ash Strats. If you buy more than one instrument they only charge One shipment price (All told less than $300 cost and I received both of them in 3 days from Germany!) The Guitars.....? The ST-20 only needed a little turn of the screw to set the neck right, the DLX Swamp Ash was PERFECT right out of the box!!! I was SHOCKED at the quality. Whomever put those guitars together really took pride in their work. The Swamp Ash, especially, plays like a dream. Mind you, the reason I wanted the Classic Vibe in the first place was because of the rave reviews it was getting as well as the price of it around Christmas 2019 and also because I didn't want to take my Fender American Standard 50th Anniversary Stratocaster to random jam sessions. I'm more than happy with my Harley Bentons though and I recommended them to a few of my friends. It seems that Thomann has kept rolling impressively. If I hadn't reached my acquisition ceiling recently (I have 13 guitars now from various companies 🙃) I'd like to at least check out some of their newer models.........

The HB-35 should be an HB-35 Plus, judging by the price (the full name was behind your window), and this one certainly has Roswell Alnico-5 PUs with a coil split. That's what differentiates the Plus from the predecessor. I think the earlier model is no longer on offer, perhaps a few left-overs. Transparency: I own (and love) my HBs, the CST-24T, the 35Plus, and the RB-414CS.

no problem with my sc 450 plus hb does the job 😃

As far as a cheap 335 copy goes, I love my Firefly 338.

Caramelized: Painted twice

The TE-52 ,looked and sounded great ...but was super heavy 11 lbs.

I fell like Harley Benton's extended range products (7 string, 8 strings, baritones) are still unbeatable - I don't know any other brand that can sell 8 string for around 200$. They even have those crazy looking 360 pound 8 strings, if you want some more quality

Fojill is another new brand that I really like. I love my Fojill mahogany light relic strat. No idea who makes them.

Now the shipping is about $80 to the USA. That kind of knocked them out of my interest. Plus, I already have the three I really wanted, and they were fine, needing only minor adjustments. Some of the Fusion models interest me, but the price on those is up to where there are other brands in that range.

Not in Canada with a $100 shipping cost.

The $99 guitar from Know Your Gear was an RJguitars strategy copy. Good luck finding an RJGuitar btw. You can find em for sale, but for some reason can't buy em.

The made in Indonesia is a selling point, means they should be higher quality than China ones. I would like to know if they come from the cort factory. Other brands like squire or epiphone kinda will hold their value over time. Anything fender is what I'd prefer instead of a clone. While the les Paul model, I'll take a clone of as they look really good from Harley Benton. The cheaper les Paul's are out there, but the fret work might not be there. Glad to see so many cheap guitars, we just need to figure which ones are worth it. I guess for a beginner it doesn't matter much. Having a brand name matters alot.

People constantly come up with reasons to tell me im no fucking good

Yes.

The sub $500 is great, especially in the used. My brother got a MIM Fender Player Strat for $425 off FB marketplace. Is Thoman equivalent to Cort? And if so, how do Cort guitars compare to HB?

Still a good value

I have a new inexplicable urge to get a roasted maple neck

Harley Benton necks Pfiel better than Squier necks

I’d say its value would be more apparent if they had a North American arm. Awe wow. See that’s cool. 😎 they do? Value is so hard to define. My 200$ was well spent on other things. Harley B’s? I’ve seen a couple. And some Firefly. It’s all a bit of a wash. It’s so hard to trust a guitar will speak to you over the internet. But man nothing beat the Epiphone I got for 150$, and the $60 Intonation bridge made it perfect. It’s not perfect. But it plays right.

I got burned on one of those headless a few years back. Wonky frets and the bridge was completely unusable. After spending a ton on tools and parts I'd rather just buy a firefly or one of the chinese guitars coming out with amazing frets

Pay as much for shipping as you do for the guitar

23:20 I have one of these, they are liars. Its a Floyd rose special.

No, you want to get the Firefly! Or any number of new guitars that people have been testing out - many with stainless steel frets, Alnico pickups and roasted maple necks. I'm not sure why you are not familiar with all these new brands, and some of the reviewers like MusicNgear, Philip McKnight, Scar My Guitar, J-Man. These people actually do serious reviews of these guitars. To me, that's where the competition from Harley Benton is, it's not Squire or Epiphone. My concern about the Harley Benton is, can you return it if you don't like the frets and who's going to pay for it? That's what prevents me from purchasing these guitars. I know that if I get a Donner, Musi, EART, IYV, I can return it for any reason for 30 days free of charge. Another issue with heart abandon is they charge you maybe $100 with taxes and shipping. And so when you say oh look at the $330 guitar it's really maybe $430. And I think it's just overpriced compared with all the new alternatives we have today.

I bought one. And I am done. The guitar had broken strings and Thomann would not do a thing for me and tried to make me feel like a criminal because I suggested a credit for a set of strings. Now a set of strings could be as low as a $5.00 item. But they wanted to se a picture of the strings and Oh My I had already changed them. I dug them out of the trash and sent a picture. They had another excuse. I bought a new guitar. I was excited to play it after waiting on shipping. Like I told them , It's there lose. I have bought many inexpensive guitars since and I will never spend another red cent at Thomann.