Harley Benton DC-Junior Faded Cherry

I've had this guitar sometime now so I've had time to work out the instruments pros and cons.

Service from Thomann was excellent as usual.
This is the best value for money of this style of guitar you'll find anywhere.
I like the woods used mine looks to be a three piece body and it's well matched timber, the neck joint is particularly well done having removed the pickguard just to have a look I was impressed how tidy the joint is.
I really like the satin finish and the neck which feels slightly bigger than epiphones 60s slim taper.
Tuning machines are quality Wilkinson vintage jobbies. Neck has a scarf joint and a volute so it will be strong.
The guitar is very light weight I like that and it rings like a bell unplugged, it's very loud even unplugged and I can feel the whole guitar vibrating when I strum it.
I personally really like the purple heart fretboard, it's very smooth and I love the colour, this might not be everyone's cup of tea but I like it.

Ok here's the cons although the pickup sounds great it's far too low and it needs shimming up to get closer to the strings. Roswell make a shim for this style of pickup and it should be supplied with the instrument. Once the pickup is in a better position it actually sounds very very good real vintage p90 tones.
My other con is the bridge, it's a good idea but to my eyes the radius isn't the same as the fretboard.
I'm finding that the further up the fret board I go the less sustain the instrument has I'm not sure why this is. Maybe it's just this style of guitar but I can't help but think the bridge is the culprit.
I've had an SG junior before and I can't recall having this problem.
I've given the frets a light sanding and polish and I've tried setting the instrument up at different heights but to no avail so the next step is to put an epiphone lightning bar tailpiece on it and see whether it improves things.
The nut was well cut however I like to sand mine down so the strings are just resting on the top and I got rid of the sharp edges on the corners.

All in all I'm not going to make a big deal of the problems but it would be nice if Thomann addressed the cons. I'm happy with the instrument and my experience with guitars is they all have their foibles doesn't how much you pay they are all different and I enjoy tinkering and learning about the instruments.
A less experienced player wouldn't spot the cons I've noticed.
Would I buy another? Yes I think I'd buy the Harley Benton DC60 junior if I was in the market for that style of guitar.
I'm still giving it four out of five because the timber and hardware are all very good quality and the workmanship is excellent. When you consider that Gibson's version of this guitar is £1100 this is a steal.
None of the components other than the bridge need upgrading.

i recieved my faded cherry HB dc and its a real nice Guitar ,nice finish , great neck and the p90 is decent a little bright but usable , the only issue i had was that my bridge was not usable due to the fact that one of the set screws was not slotted and another was popped out the bridge , but Thomann is sending me a new replacement bridge , so when i get that ill be able to set it up and here how it plays in tune and intonated , i will definitely be getting more HB guitar , and love Thomanns customer service , prompt emails and chats to me here in the States, Peace to all from South Mississippi U.S.A.

Always liked the DC Junior type guitar. Simple no nonsense .
So decided to get this HB "clone" as I've got a couple of other HBs that , for the price , I've been impressed by the quality.
I realised a long time ago that, especially with guitars, you more or less get what you pay for. This is true up to a point, but with HB you get, in my opinion more bang for buck. Quality of build is good on this guitar and the finish is unblemished. Good Wilkinson tuners, an ADJUSTABLE, wrap around bridge which seems fine and full size tone and volume potentiometers. Not familiar with Roswell pickups but this P90 sounds on point.. Medium weight .
Now the "but" : . . . . Expect to have to adjust truss rod, action and intonation to achieve the best playability of this instrument. One thing that was lucky was that when I was adjusting the action (string height) screwing the bridge down I reached my required action when the bridge was screwed virtually all the way down. If you want ridiculously low action then you may struggle. The truss rod reacted well to adjustments. The nut was obviously hastily cut and at some point I'll replace it with a black one. It is these "lack of set up" out of the box, so so nut , that keeps the price point at very affordable. If I didn't have to do that I would have given 5 stars for quality and overall, but with features, hey, it's a single pickup simple guitar, so difficult to give five stars !
Bottom line I really like this guitar. Properly set up it's a keeper, with upgraded nut and possibly P90 it would be a no brainer.

For the price, and frankly even without factoring in the price, this is a brilliant Junior-style guitar. The finish is excellent, the neck relief and action were perfect out of the box, and even the intonation only required a slight tweak.

I was expecting to have to change the electronics once I got it--at this price, I figured they'd be lousy, but I found both pots and the jack are perfectly fine and feel quite good. The graphite nut also does the job, and the frets just needed a little polish.

However, there are a few things to keep in mind. If you want to really enjoy this guitar, you'll want to make a few mods. The first is to knock some of the sharp edges off the wraparound bridge, as it's legitimately painful to palm mute out of the box. I used a file and smoothed over the corners of the three lowest saddles and one corner of the bridge itself, and it no longer huts.

The second mod is to shim the pickup. As others have mentioned, it's far too low and sounds more like a Tele bridge pickup out of the box, but if you use a 3mm shim (this requires temporarily unsoldering the pickup so you can put the shim underneath) it gains a substantial amount of midrange that will have you reconsider changing the pickup.

Overall, very happy with this--now make a case that fits it snug without modifications!