Harley Benton CST-24T Emerald Flame

Having just played this guitar at its 1st live gig and concluded to myself that it had been ?f***ing brilliant? I thought it deserved a review; so here goes:

A happy owner of 2 other Harley Bentons (an SC-Custom P90 Black & CST-24HB Tortoise Flame) (as well as owning many other more guitars from significantly more expensive brands) ... I'd been GAS'ing about getting a solid CST-24 with trem for quite some time. So when I finally got to see one "in the flesh" via the great video review that Cory Mura (thanks Cory!!) put up on YouTube, my mind was made up: the new Emerald Green CST-24T was the way to go!

And what a beautiful instrument it is! Let's face it, even until recently, one could only dream of buying a guitar with a custom colour like this that looked this good; never mind at this price!!

The original photos on the Thomann page did it a major disservice (hence my initial hesitation to buy) ... they've mostly fixed that now; their current photos are more accurate in terms of colour .. though still not 100% correct based on my guitar:

The top is a perfect, not-too-dark/not-too-light, real classy, deep, glossy emerald (with a well centred, perfectly book-matched, very pretty dark flame). The back, sides, lower cutaway and neck are a much darker green (not obvious from the Thomann photos) that shows off the mahogany grain very well under the transparent polished lacquer .. This contrasting use of different greens really sets off the top to look its best. ... mmmmm, GORGEOUS!! .. did I mention that ;-D

The body appears to be made of 2 (or possibly 3) sections and includes a belly-cut & lower cut-away shaping for easy top-fret access; everything appears to be very well done. The shaping and contouring of the body-top and the cut-away's is 'NICE' !

The neck also could possibly be a multi-piece laminate but it is well disguised under the dark green lacquer. The neck shape is quite different to my other HB CST24HB in that it feels somewhat thinner than the generally chunky-ish CST24HB (which is good news for the thumb-over folks out there) .. In any case, the neck is very comfortable. The position of the neck/body joint and the shaping of the lower cut-away certainly do give unrestricted access to those upper frets, even the 24th. Just be careful not to over-shoot by a few frets whilst playing and aiming for above the 12th fret .. it's easily done, trust me, I've been there .. whoops! LOL

The usual top notch service from Thomann, it arrived safe & sound in the UK 3 days after ordering, double boxed and well packed.

An excited check over happily found only a few very minor cosmetic issues with the finish here & there (only noticeable under very close scrutiny). Let's face it, at this price no-one should expect perfection, so a few minor, cosmetic-only issues are totally acceptable (and honestly folks, the few findings on mine are really very minor ... & totally forgotten about once you strap on this beauty).

Generally the as-received generic set-up was good and totally acceptable ... i.e. good to go:
- Strings (new) in OK condition (the odd small spot of corrosion here & there)
- Frets: 24 nicely polished & no sharp fret-ends. Not perfectly level but acceptable (see action details below).
- Fretboard: the usual 'dry' looking "roseacer" which actually has a nice grain-like appearance (it can be improved/darkened by application of a suitable wood treatment). Well fitted off-white pearloid dot markers & cream binding yield a tidy, attractive professional look to the instrument.
- Machine heads: no-name but work well, smooth & accurate to adjust.
- Nut: very well cut, with a low action at the 1st fret for all strings (~ 0.5mm clearance).
- String action: as received medium-low (see my set-up comments below)
- Controls/pots: smooth to turn; the push/pull switch on the tone control is easy to operate (see my set-up comments below). I love the master volume, master tone control layout of this guitar ... very practical!
- PU switch: OK. Note: The position of the switch takes a little bit of getting used to ... but it's fine after a bit of practise.
- Trem/Bridge: Excellent. It has a push in arm with friction positioning via a grub-screw. It came set-up floating (see my set-up comments below).
- Balances well on a strap; very comfortable to play; not heavy (~3.5kg); "ergonomic" is a good word for the overall design.
- Acoustic sound: bright with plenty of sustain (which bodes well for the electric sound)

To really get the best out of a HB, generally you do need to perform some set-up work & this was true here. However, to be fair, my experience, having now bought 3 HB's, is that Thomann do a pretty good job setting them up so that the out-of-the-box condition should be good enough for a beginner ... but I'm just too fussy I guess; plus I do enjoy getting to know the guitar a bit more intimately by doing a full set-up ... which for this guitar was:

Remove strings; polish frets (not much needed here); treat fretboard surface; put on new set of 9's; set nut action (no major change needed here); set neck relief & string action & bridge saddle radius (I got it down to a clean playing low action: 1mm on 1st & 1.5mm on 6th at 12th fret); adjust trem (floating with approx minor 3rd pull-up on G string; very stable tuning with firm trem action & the arm stays where it's put ... what a great trem system ... other brands should take note, this is how it should be done!!!!).

After doing this set-up, the guitar played (& looked) as good as one costing 3, 4, 5 times the price IMO.

Played through my amp, happy to say it sounded very good, at least in isolation in my back room playing by myself. The stock Wilkinson pick-ups are usually totally acceptable with no real need to be swapped out; & this is true here. With the controls on full, the tone is full but still bright & clear.

But ... the tone control just destroys the sound when fully rolled off (it has a 47nF cap in there, so that's why ... much too large IMO). The coil-split works OK on both PU's and yields a much thinner/quieter/hollow tone that I found out later (at the gig) is just too far away from the full humbucker sound to be really useful (hmm .. a mod is required there me-thinks (a la PRS!). Also, there is the expected drop off of treble as you turn down the volume ... so I did modify the circuit to address these points:
: Change the 47nF tone cap to a 15nF: now the tone control can be used throughout its full travel
: Change to 50's wiring (i.e. tone cct after the volume pot) with the addition of a tapered treble bleed ("Frank Falbo mod")(180pF). Now there is no loss of treble and the Vol control has a great taper that can easily clean up a dirty amp. Very Nice!
: Not done yet but next time under the hood: modify the push/pull switch cct to have a "partial" (= not full) coil split (by adding a low value (= 1k & 2k) resistor to ground on the split coil in each humbucker; this hopefully should improve the 2 coil-split sounds).
Note: the original wiring was acceptable & tidily done ... 'though the pots & switches are very cheap types (but work fine .. for now)

So having now played my 1st live gig with this guitar, which I find is the best test of what a guitar sounds like (i.e. playing in amongst drums, bass, etc) I can say: it did not disappoint. It played wonderfully, stayed in tune perfectly, sounded excellent and gave me all the sounds I wanted (though I didn't use the coil-split sound much for the reason mentioned above) .... & of course, it looked stunning!

OK, for the sake of balance, here are the few negatives I could think of:
- Cosmetic issues: 1cm thin crease in the veneer in the top cut-away; a few odd tiny speckles under the gloss coat here & there; slight gap under the pick-up rings; light scratch on the body-back; some 'sharpish' edges on the nut; cheap looking truss-rod cover.
- Frets: some minor levelling issues identified by a fret-rocker (but do not hinder getting a great low action)
- Electronics: very cheap (but still totally functional) components; too large value tone cap (47nF!); bog-standard electrical circuit used.

Sorry, that's all I could come up with on the negative side.

Conclusion:

Irrespective of price: What a Great Guitar! But at this price ... unbelievable!! 5 stars all 'round.

The bottom line: GET ONE!!

I absolutely love love love this guitar!
It's my very first HB guitar that I have bought but it'll definitely not be my last. It's gorgeous, it sound amazing and has awesome features.

The choice was between this colour and a Paradise Flame but I am very glad that I picked the Emerald Green one. It's absolutely gorgeous with a stunning finish and I cannot complement it enough! Put it together with a purple strap and you have a perfect quirky "The Joker" finish.

Let's get serious though for a second, there's a lot of good reviews out there, both on the website and on Youtube and I can only tell you that they are telling the truth. My guitar when it arrived already had a very good action, no sharp frets - and get this: it was in tune! -
I just took it out of the box and started playing and couldn't put it down.
The pickups are great and I love the pull-push switch to get a single coil out of a humbucker. Rock, Metal, Blues and Clean, this guitar can do it all.

I am seriously happy with my purchase and together with my freshly ordered Boss Katana MKII 100, there's no song, no genre that safe from us anymore.

Listen to your gut, it's always right and get this guitar! ;-)

Disclaimer: Get it at your own risk because you may become addicted to this guitar. :-D

I wanted a PRS style guitar, and had seen this in green and thought it looked pretty good. And for £230, it seemed like a good buy - You tubers were giving the CST-24T rave reviews, so I thought I'd try it.

It took a while to get here, as they seem to be quite popular. I think I waited about 7 or 8 weeks for mine.

It arrived, and after a quick setup, a stretch of the strings, reduce the action and check the intonation, it was ready to go. And boy, did it go.

The Roswell pickups are brilliant, although I find the bridge pickup has a little too much treble for my ear, but easily fixed by rolling off the tone knob.

It has all the tones you need for a humbucking guitar, and will easily coil-split if you want them to.

Downsides? There aren't many, especially for the cost; but for my 2p's worth, here are a couple of things I might do with mine:

Change out the tuners. They're pretty good, but the ratio is something like 14:1, which for me means it's sometimes tricky to get the tuning done quickly. May swap them for a set of 18:1 locking tuners.

Change the knobs from the chrome silver ones to black cylindrical ones. I think the silver ones are a bit too much "in your face".

These are just my preference, but you could leave it as stock, and have no downsides at all.

Finally, I have a PRS SE Custom 24, and I compared the two. The difference? About £600. The CST24 stands up very well against the PRS. The PRS, in my opinion is better, but is it £600 better? No, I don't think so.

Combine the CST24 with a Harley Benton Tube15 and you've got a small gig-ready setup that'll give you almost everything you need for under £500. Throw in a couple of pedals, and you're good to go.

If you've read this far, just go buy one. It's a proper guitar for proper guitarists.

I’ve been a pro musician for over fifty years. I bought this in 2018 as my first guitar from Thomann and didn’t know what to expect. My confession is that I did it as a lark to buy a “slam around the house guitar”… But holee shite I was completely blown away at the quality to price ratio of this gorgeous guitar. I own Fenders, Strat and Tele from Corona, and Yamaha Weddington Custom but when I strapped this tone monster on it was as if I fell into guitar heaven! And that is not hyperbolic. I love this guitar because it “fits” me perfectly, plays perfectly intonated and stays in tune. The tone from the Roswell Alnico5 pickups w/ coil split are perfectly warm and crisp.
Takes a little volume boost when split but that’s normal. I run through a two amp rig w/ Fender Hot Rod Deville w/ 4 Jenson 10’s paired to a Fender Twin Reverb Tone Master Blonde. Just a sick tone rig and I love playing this guitar through this rig. Recently got a Line 6 Catalyst, 60w, and it’s the same result with that great amp as well. TONE, TONE, TONE!!!
The only mod was to install locking tuners. PERFECT GUITAR!
The value and quality for the $’s is amazing!
BTW… I just bought the hard tail version in Paradise Flame. The way this guitar sounds and feels to me was definitely cause to pull the trigger for an (almost) twin sister! Big thanks to all y’all at Thomann for these outstanding Harley Benton guitar models!

You have to consider the price point. But Thomann and HB have the budget area just sewn up. I bought a Lemon Semi and was really happy with that, but this guy just takes the biscuit.
The looks are amazing. Not a hair out of place. And as with my lemon baby, the pick ups are a joy. Solid or light, up to you.
Never had a 24 fret before, but the stainless steel makes the strings fly. Proper nut helps keep it in tune. Strings were ok, but I swapped them. Just ridiculous how good this looks and feels and plays for the dosh.
Addicted I am, to them. HB are in a class of their own... The 12 string looks nice.. When's my birthday....?......

I LOVE this guitar! I love the feel of it, the Well balanced weight, and it's such an easy instrument to play. It looks stunning with the emerald green flamed maple top, and is very well constructed too. The neck felt really smooth with a good set up straight out of the box,with no rough or sprouting frets. A slight adjustment to the action to suit my own preference was all it needed to get playing, and it holds it's tuning perfectly well even if left for a while. The electronics are all good quality, and all work with no problems, switching, pickups, and coil splitting are easy but positive and solid. The pickups produce a great range of tones from lovely chiming cleans to growling overdriven tones, so I couldn't ask for anything more. I find it to be just a great all round guitar at an excellent price. In fact, I love it so much I just bought a second very similar Harley Benton in the black cherry colour. You can never have too many guitars can you? Thank you once again Thomann for your brilliant range of guitars and your top class service!

I could not have asked for a better guitar for the price. I have tried it on many different styles of music, and it has handled each very well. The Roswell pickups are actually very versatile, however, if you play more metal, then they may lack some of the output you might be looking for (But it handles Iron Maiden and Ozzy Osbourne well enough). The guitar was playable out of the box, with the intonation already perfect. It is very well put together, with the only finish flaws being a speck of green dye on the binding, and a small scuff on the last highest fret. However, there is nothing else I could even nitpick about this instrument. The bride is smooth and comfortable, the tuners are sturdy and maintain tuning well, and the frets have no sharp ends or scratchiness. The only thing I would change would be the knobs, and only to give the instrument a little bit of individuality. But more than anyhting, I love that I could get this colour for such a reasonable price, as the only PRS of a similar colour was over 3 grand more. This guitar is certainly worth your Time.