What do you think of the Harley Benton DC Custom II? Worth the money or not? Buy the Harley Benton DC Custom II from Thomann - thmn.to/thoprod/570325?offid=1&affid=288
Harley Benton has made it possible for me to experiment with many different guitar styles without breaking the bank. My friends are a bit snobby but when they play one of my HBs they are always surprised by the quality.
They usually need some setting up and their fit and finish is lacking most of the time, but other than that they're awesome. I usually get shapes and models that no other company or only a few offer like the Mosrite copy.
Got mine two weeks ago, very happy with it. Seems they changed headstock logo recently. The one in this review, and most others has those 4 rhomboids, while mine has geometrical ornament. The photos on the Thomann site used to show the four rhomboids until three-four days ago, when they changed the stock photos, and now it shows the ornamental logo, same as I got.
Imagine how lightweight the wood on this DC Custom must be. If the made it as thin as the SG the headstock would keep pointing to the center of the earth. Nice to see HB ist stepping up in quality. Some 7 years ago a nethew had an entry HB DC, which was unplayable and suffered from crappy pickups. I gifted him my Epi LP so he wouldn`t loose any motivation to play.
Very Cool, Thankyou. I was never 'interested' in getting an 'SG' guitar even though being a huge Angus Young, Duane Allman Fan. This was until I purchased a 'Budget' 2011 Epiphone 'SG'. Oh WOW. I soon 'understood' SG's. Such an Awesome Guitar. All the Best. Cheers
Love the look of this guitar, really hard to argue with HBs custom lines for the price. Big fan of those Tesla pickups, to my ears they're a huge upgrade over the cheaper pickups. I'd take them over the EMG Retroactives that are in some other "more expensive" HB guitars. Probably gonna pick one of these up when they come back in stock. Would love to see a black finish or maybe even something way more colourful and different.
In terms of QC, I’ve had mixed experiences with Thomann guitar purchases. I have a brilliant Harley Benton 12 string electric (Rickenbacker knock-off) that was superb straight out the box, but I also have an Ibanez Gio bass that was shockingly bad and wouldn’t have been fixable for a beginner. I rate Thomann and Harley Benton incredibly highly though - the value for money is insane.
nice SG by HB. I have a viper-50 but I think I like this shape more. If I would have a custom made SG looking shape guitar, it will look like this one.
I bought both HB's finished guitars as well as many DIY kits. The quality is always superb, for the price paid. These Tesla pickups sound great but also the Roswells they used in my HB guitars were really good. I would rate any HB Strat in the range between 200 and 300 euros equal if not better that a Fender Player series.
One of my favorite guitars is a 6-string Jay Turser SSH Strat style guitar that I bought used from Guitar Center online. It can be noisy if you have too much distortion, but it's solid if you tame it a bit. (Noise gates are great.) My point is, you don't need to spend too much on a guitar. You need good electronics (including the pickup) and a good setup. But it is sometimes more likely that you get better electronics in a more expensive guitar.
About those pickups, I bought guite a similar HB SG copy a year ago and it is quite a nice guitar. It has quite nice potwaxed Tesla pickups of which the neck pup is a bit underwound (3.57H/1.51H/7.2kohm/3.53kohm) compared to classic PAF, and bridge pup was a bit overwound (5.17H/2.22H/8.8kohm/4.4kohm). (Values measured in guitar, not separated from guitar.) It would be nice if you could measure those values in addition to sound tests because those values could give some support to those sound observations. And yes, splitting those humbuckers usually cannot give a Stratocaster pickup sound because splitted humbucker has only about 4k DC resistance and does not have that resonance peak of a strat pup. But however, it still can be quite an useful option.
It’s great that you can still get a guitar as good as this for so little money. I do own an entry level Gibson SG, and the reason I picked it over a LP was to do with weight primarily. This HB guitar is a full kilogram heavier than my SG which is a shame. That’s not necessarily a bad thing but for my preferences it does wipe out one of the advantages of an SG. It wouldn’t however put me off buying a HB in future though
I'm was never fond of HT-5's dirty channel. And after seeing schematics of it, I knew what my ears caught at the beginning of using it. It's full of ICs. So much for a tube amp. xD
I am the same with SG body shape, though I would make an exception for the Guild Polara because it has history and has its own sound. But generally I am a stickler for original SGs only marginally offset horn proportions and shape. Anything more offset just doesn’t look right to me. Still, it sounds great and the price is bang on.
you really got me on this one. i always wanted an sg but the prices or the badly made copies just wrecked that idea. this one is 99.5% of gettin it and its YOUR FAULT hahaha. and btw i am in fact a symmetry freak two on the double cut sg guitars^^
It is heavy. My pic guard is perfect. I have bought 6 HBs. Still have 4 and typically I buy B-stock, including my DC Cherry Red. All have come in great condition.
The lack of 'warmth' in the neck pickup sound comes from the fact it is less afar from the actual bridge than on a 'real'/ordinary SG. The neck is jointed one or two fret lower, more inside the body. You can see the lack of a tenon cover, wich can be see seen between the end of the fingerboard and the neck pickup on a 'real' SG. That makes for a more compact guitar but also make it visually a bit awkward. It's difficult to see why at first.
This is more like a Ltd Viper. I have a Viper 400 and this is much closer to that (while a Viper has horns, its more of a Les Paul (heft) meets a Jaguar (it's actually an Offset) and they are fun to play. Lars Friedricksen from Rancid and Vinny Stigma from Agnostic Front play Vipers.
A better single coil comparison might have been against a tele rather than a strat, since they're both two pickup non vibrato guitars. Great demo none the less.
@@RaxFx Graph-Tech impregnates its TusQ composites with PTFE, not graphite. Graphite is black, you can't make it white no matter how hard you try. Mind you, PTFE is a better 'lubricant' mix-in than graphite, but it just sounds funny when people call Graph-Tech nuts, or any other white nuts for that matter - graphite. They most certainly are not.
Which forums are you reading? There is op Amp circuitry In the tube amps of Blackstar As there is in Mesa boogies or Marshalls. I don’t understand why people call out Blackstar for this when many Amp builders are using this technology
@@TheGuitarGeek An op amp existing somewhere in a tube amp is extremely different from what Blackstar has done for more than a decade. With respect, just looking at the number of preamp tubes in benchmark amps from various eras will illustrate that Blackstar's amps do not have enough preamp tubes to get their distortion from preamp tubes alone. The solid-state phase inverter is at least as significant, however, as the phase inverter tube is responsible for most of the distortion from cranking a power amp (e.g. the phase inverter tube is the first tube to distort in a Marshall Plexi). I invented an electric-guitar circuit 13 years ago, at which point I began researching how pickups, pedals, amps, speakers, and their connecting cables function because a change that early in the signal chain affects everything downstream. That knowledge is why I have commented that pickups should not be measured from the end of a guitar cable. I mean no disrespect or self aggrandizement; I mean to help, as I dislike that the knowledge I have gained is so uncommon. I plan finally to launch my RU-vid show next year, due to housing issues, with which I will teach how electric-guitar gear works from a user perspective such that customers can shop more wisely and artists can more easily make the art they choose.
I ordered one of the SG style Harley Benton DC-DLX Gotoh Daphne Blue Deluxe guitars in Dec 2022 and the headstock and neck was so badly twisted relative to the body as shown in the pictures I took and sent to their customer service, they refunded money and didn't even want it back. So I agree with his statement that not all of the guitars are checked before being sent out.
Yep had similar problems with HB pretending there was nothing wrong with a couple of guitars I sent back for obvious QC problems (and I know what I talking about as I have set up, fret dressed, etc many guitars over the years).
Seems pretty nice for sure. Not in the market for an SG unless I fell in love with one well under 8 pounds, though 😂. My Singlecut is a nice thick boy and I'm thinking it'll stay with me a long time, other than that I think I'm more for the Strat/tele weight. That price, though... appreciate your reviews ❤
Aloha, I like the fat body and there is no neck-dive. I wish they would slim the headstock. A flying V headstock would be great. But the big G is there. A smarter headstock design would be great. Perhaps harley benton can try what Fender did with there parallel universe. Umbasa
I am a beginner and a big fan of Harley Benton. My first guitar was (still is) their TE-62 in shell pink but I wanted a second guitar with humbuckers because I thought it would suit what I want to play better (and it does) so I went for their SC-Custom III in Lemon Flame (so their Les Paul instead of the SG here, but with the same pickups and hardware). Neck and Bridge pickups sounded great, but the middle position was awful. It was basically the same sound as the neck. I wondered if it maybe even was only the neck? I messaged their customer service (always great) about this and they said that it was as it should be, so I had to send it back, unfortunately. Pity you didn't talk about this a bit more after you mentioned it once at some point. But yeah, in its place I bought the Squier CV 70's Telecaster Deluxe which is great, although 100 euros more expensive
There was at least one year (2015) where Gibson moved the jack to the side of the SG (and Firebird) using one of those long threaded jacks to avoid making the sides chunky. Traditionalists revolted, and the jacks moved back up to the top in 2016.
I don't recall that. Gibson, a company unable to innovate because of its tradition. I am sure the changes to this guitar are to keep Thomann USA out of range of Gibson's lawyers.
Don't think I will buy another HB to be honest. I have a couple, one was excellent out of the box, the other had several issues which needed attention. The shape of that copy looks "off" to me but that's a personal thing I suppose.
The thinness and low weight would be the only reason I’d ever play an SG. I love the way they sound, but the headstock being several inches further out than I’m used to make it uncomfortable for me to play, sadly.
I love my HB's BUT.... I hate that orange jatoba. Thomann, if you're reading this, GO BACK TO DARKER FRETBOARDS. I stained an SC-550ii fretboard. I tried ink, various types of stain. Ultimately landed on a MinWax ebony pen. Still took a few days' worth of coats.
Thanks Andy! Looks beautiful. Sounds good, although the coil split didn't sound all that different, aside from the drop in volume. Frankly it sounded more like coil-tapping (still humbucking but with fewer coils). I did check the Thomann website, it does say coil-tap. And is it my imagination or is the high e string fretting out and not sustaining? Was the extra solder on the push pull pot supposed to be for a ground connection, I wonder?
hi man I got this guitar a few weeks back and the one I received has a very dark brown fretboard not light like this dudes also mine has a different pattern on the headstock more tribal looking...maybe contact thomman to see if they all are being sent out like this as I have noticed others saying they have the new headstock version also so they may all come with a darker fretboard with the different headstock version...they have recently updated the photos on the website as the headstock was like this dudes....I thought I was the only one in the world who had this version of this guitar until I read others saying they got the same as me lol......very good guitar tho...cheers
The sound was upsetting my ears Sounded out on the third and fourth I can’t get on with SG’s (strange considering I used to lust after them as a yoof) but Harley Benton are fairly consistent with their guitars…minus the odd setup issue. Actually looking forward to using them live outside of jam and rehearsal
Eh there is plenty of "short" push pull potentiometers out there that you can find in cheap brands and in Epi and Gibson and those pots aren't more expensive. My guess it's either a CnC convenience thing or a lawsuit precaution. My money is on streamlining the CnC production so models dont matter as much. Peace
I had this guitar quite a while ago, it was my first HB and I was really surprised at the guitar I got for what I paid. I am planning to swap out the pickups , I have a set of 490R/T and SD Jazz series, I wonder which. ones should I use
.. other words which start with the letter R Robust.. (for the thickness) Raw.. (for rhe sound) Remarkably odd looking top horn.. and finally.. Reasonably priced.
Again, measuring pickups through a cable does not measure the pickups: it measures the cable, the jack (relevant only if the soldering is bad), the controls as they are currently set, and the pickups.
A "checked by" tag isnt necessarily any reassurance anyway. My one HB (checked by 758 👋) was comical - tailpiece decked and strings visibly bent over the back edge of the bridge. A few minutes doing a sane setup and its mind boggling value and I'm a happy bunny. Though I'm not sure 758's guide dog knows what to check on a guitar. Other creators seem to get pot luck even on arranged reviews, so I'd put my 1c bet on yours being representatively random rather than cherry picked and prepped. Shielding paint is pennies. Thats such a weird corner to cut, especially when theyve taken the time to overlap the lip to contact the shielding tape on the cover. Strange and mystifying, but not completely surprising.
To bad Gibson Epiphone doesn't know how package guitars for shipping. They wouldn't have such a high rate of broken headstocks in shipping. Every third guitar ordered, one with damage.
A bit garbage that they paint the electronics cavity but don't bother to actually use shielding paint to do it. Make it look like it's the business, but completely drop the ball. Reminds me of last year when they used non-conductive black paint to coat the bridge and tail pieces of some guitars, so it was impossible to ground the bridge without scraping the finish off it. Clearly they've hired factory that doesn't completely know what it's doing.
And they are sold out. Is it just me or HB's are getting more and more difficult to get?????. Gee I remember I waited two days to order the new modern strat and all the colors got sold out, guys please leave something behind...