Harley Benton JA-60LH OW

Had been wanting a guitar with P90 pickups for awhile to round out my collection. This one arrived this morning, and after unboxing, removing the protective plastic, and tuning her up, I plugged her into a Fender Reverb and let it go. It sounds so beautiful with no effects at all, crisp clean quack on the high-ends, and clear tight lows. I added a fuzz and a bit of reverb, and sounds great with that too. Exactly what I was hoping for.

Quality is very high, no dents or dings at all, the frets need a bit of a dressing, but nothing major at all. The fretboard feels great, the routing for the inlays are nice and sharp, and the nut seems to be cut well. The tuners feel very stiff, they might need some breaking in, but its not a big deal. The guitar itself is way lighter than I was expecting, against my Telecaster there's no comparison in weight, this is surprisingly light. The only thing I've discovered that's not great about this guitar are the pots. The tone knob feels fine, turns with no problem but it's all or nothing with the tone, either bright and crisp or full-on cream. The moment the tone knob is turned up from 1-2 there is a massive change, and then nothing from 2-10.

Overall, if you're looking for a well-made, quality instrument to fill in some gaps in your arsenal, this one would be hard to beat for the cost. Brilliant instrument, fun to play, sounds great with pedals, I'm a very happy customer.

Heading says it all really... a lot of guitar for so little outlay. In fact, this is the second JA-60 (amongst many other HB's in my collection) I now own - the first was a sunburst version - and I rate them as excellent for my requirements. More versatile than either Strat or SG/Les Paul style guitars with elements of both.
Usual little niggles are: fret ends needed slight smoothing and frets themselves a little gritty but a light going over with 1000 grit w/d paper sorted that issue in no time. Also strings a little tardy, but I always swap them out as a matter of couse. Best of all, though are the P90 pickups - so versatile. Goes from bright Telecaster-like to thick Gibbo sound and everything in between - can do Country/Blues/Jazz at the flick of a switch.
These, once set up, are keepers. Well done Thomann.

This will be a rather lengthy review, so if you just want my personal opinion right away; I recommend this product to all guitar players.

Where to start?

First off, I am not going to say something along the lines of "This is a good guitar for its price" because to me, it's beyond that concept (concept of price) To put it in perspective, this guitar could easily be worth 2x or 3x its asking price.

Now to my review and let's start at the top.

The tuners are actually excellent, not sure I will ever change them and I considered locking tuners before getting it. I often do quite extreme string-bends on all the six strings and after even a couple of hours of playing most strings are still in tune, it will depend I suppose (old strings, worn nut, bad technique ect) but at least no noticeable changes in the tuning after use.
Not sure if the tuners are "official" of any sort but to bring my point home mine was very very good. On to the nut.

The nut seems to be perfect cut! I have zero problems with intonation anywhere and I think just how well the nut is made also reflects the way the guitar stays in tune. It is plastic, I believe, and I really don't like that on any guitar because that means that at some point in time it will get worn down to the point where I'll have to make a new one or send the guitar away to have it replaced with bone or tusq ect. But for now, and as of getting the guitar, the nut is perfect. Truss rod:

Truss rod seems to be a two-way one and it is good. To put it in perspective, from the day I received the guitar (I adjusted the truss rod) and up until now there has been zero changes to the neck. Neck is very easy to adjust and it doesn't have to be adjusted every two weeks even with climate changes going on outside or inside.

Frets are of the bigger size, maybe jumbo-style? If you like those, or prefer those, like I do, you'll love playing on this neck. Chords are easier, bending strings are easier, less effort for anything is required so the frets and the neck get top grades here for playability and sound.

I want to say something about the strings too. They are good, however, I have noticed on other cheaper guitars too that sometimes the strings get some kind of residue on them or something, so they are brand new but they got some stuff on them or they are slightly corroded. If this bothers you include with your purchase a set of new strings. It didn't bother me and I still have my strings on.

I have been playing guitar for 20+ years and owned a guitar from most brands and companies and this is actually the first time I have P90 style pickups so to brutally honest, I don't know how to compare them to other P90 style pickups but I know what they sound like and how they sound compared to other pickups in general. So, you basically got a single coil pickup but with a higher output than ordinary single coils. I'd say a hybrid between single coil and humbuckers. The distorted tone is spongy with lots of mid, it sounds crisp so I believe there's a lot of treble here too. On the bass side however, it lacks, so I guess if you play a lot of heavy metal or metal in general you might want to swap out the pickups and while you are at it you might have to change the pickguard too.

Volume and Tone knobs works, going about halfway on volume darkens the sound somewhat and clears up the distortion and removes some of the low-end, likewise with the tone it darkens it even more but the low-end is still there, kinda like the famous "woman-tone", kinda.

Hardware is nice and sturdy, good quality, setting the intonation on the bridge-side is a breeze and it works very well.

So to sum it up: Great tuners, well cut nut, fast neck, good even and big frets, very adjustable neck and adjustable guitar in general, interesting pickups that sound very good for blues, rock, old school rock, hard-rock rhythm, beautiful cleans, overdriven and distorted too, beautiful finish with matching headstock makes this guitar pop out at you, it suits any room, nice and light yet sounding heavier. I wouldn't change a thing on it, and probably never will to be quite honest. But if you don't like the pots and pickups you might have to pay around what you paid for this guitar to have that changed so keep that in mind. Also, these pickups feedback on very high gain and volume settings, some sort of noise gate is crucial.

I can recommend this to all levels of playing, really. Beginners will benefit and we who has played for decades will enjoy its speed ease possibilities and sound.

I can only end my review on this note: you know when you buy a guitar for A LOT of money and you play it for a few days sometimes you kinda get the famous buyers remorse for having spent that much money? I had buyers remorse on this too because trust me at the price... this guitar is a steal and I feel I should have paid more it should and could be worth 2x - 3x times more.

Thank you Thomann this is one great looking and great sounding piece of equipment I am blown away.

I bought this out of curiosity, just to see if HB guitars are any good. The guitar that arrived was already fine and playable, but then my guitar tech friend took it and set it up properly and installed original Fender Jazzmaster pickups (the pickups that came with it were much "hotter", but not bad). Now it is an amazing guitar and a joy to play.

So, the guitar cost 140€ and the pickups cost 110€. Add to that the cost of someone replacing the pickups and setting the guitar up properly and you get to roughly 350€. But, now this guitar is just perfect and multiple times cheaper than the original Jazzmaster, but it plays just as good.

Kudos to Thomann for making such a fine guitar for such a low price, I'm definitely buying a few more.

I bought this guitar last month and received it a couple weeks later. Upon taking it out of the box, I could see that the finish was flawless. No bumps or dents or anything of that nature. The colour is much nicer in person than in pictures or videos that I've seen so just based on the looks, this thing is a killer deal. But then I felt the frets... Boy, were those things sharp. And the tuners are awful. They're so stiff, it's like riding a bike while holding the breaks. Luckily I had some nice Hipshot locking tuners from a previous project, and I grabbed some nice graphtech string trees to replace the cheap ones it came with. The guitar sounds as expected, very bright and spanky. The electronics can stay where they are, no problems with them. The guitar I received may have slipped through QC as I had a Harley Benton 5 string bass before and it was much nicer out of the box. With a little TLC for the frets and new locking tuners, this thing is a looker and a player! You will have to put in some more money and work but it's worth it!

Love the color combination on this one. Tort-like pickguard and cream, yummy!
Binding on neck always makes things a little better aesthetics or playability wise (eliminating sharp-fret-end issues most of the time). P-90s are single-coil pickups with a greater output in the midrange. Not the holy grail like so many musicians out there claim (and even more of them hate) but a different sound that you surely won't mind adding to your sonic palette.
Knobs in the way of one's picking/strumming hand in even worse fashion than on a Strat. If you don't mind then you're fine. I for one simply cannot play with those in their original location, so both knobs and pots get removed and thrown in the parts bin. Result: highly playable with an unmuffled full-range sound.
Great little guitar (after the aforementioned modification).