Harley Benton HB-35Plus Cherry

The guitar arrived well packed with double boxing to prevent damage (a good start there then..)

Neck: The neck is straight and well finished with no fret sprout or sharp edges (a real bonus at this price point as opposed to Epiphone for instance, who don't seem to give a jot for customers cutting their hands on badly finished and sprouting frets)

Frets: The fourth fret is slightly high (I will get my luthier to sort it out when I put it in for servicing in six months or so, in the meantime I've raised the action by a bit so it's not a major problem to me)

The fretboard had on delievery a lovely coating of dirty buffing compound which is of course sub-optimal, but the compound was removed by the lemon oil I used to bring the fretboard back to life (prior to this the fretboard looked dry and dusty and made my fingers dirty with buffing compound and the residue from the frets when they were (not very well) polished, but 5 minutes with a dremel with a small buffing wheel affixed cured that during the string change.

The dot markers down the edge of the fretboard are very uneven some touching the binding others 2 or 3 mm clear of the binding (quality control problem?)

Machine heads: Really good, they are smooth and hold tune (so far at least)

Body: A smashing veneer on the top and well made, unfortunately the person who screwed the scratch plate on needed a second go at screwing it on (leaving an unsightly two holes where I've removed the scratch plate, instead of the normal one),

The finish on the body and neck is however of really good quality.

Hardware:The pickup spacing doesn't match the stringing , the strings line up with the pole pieces on the bass side but on the treble side the pole pieces are 3 or 4 mm out of line (the neck would accept the pickup's pole spacing just that the stings were set too far inboard (quality control problem?), Setting the strings outboard a couple of millimetres on each side would have averted this problem as it stands where the treble side of the sound is slightly weak (due to the misalignment of the string relative to the pole pieces)

The bridge is of abysmal quality, the bridge would not drop as it should because of poor manufacture/finishing, however 10 minutes with a file and putting a little grease on the threads has alleviated the problem (I shall be buying a replacement bridge at some time but for now it's working and I'm counting my blessings there).

The intonation was a little off as delivered, but as I have removed the standard 10s and replaced them with 9s it needed to be reset anyway.

Volume and Tone controls, the volume controls are as they should be, but the tone controls have a very uneven gradation of tone, reducing treble by very little at first but a big drop in treble on the last 10-15 degrees of rotation (maybe using pots with an audio taper would fix this?)

The pickup heights were far from optimal as setup, the neck pickup was about 3mm from the strings, and at the bridge pickup about 8mm, which resulted in a lower level from the bridge pickup, on adjustment the pickups now have far more equal output.

All in all it's a really nice guitar marred by some really slapdash mistakes, the coil taps making far more tones available than can be got by non-tapped humbuckers alone, making it far more versatile guitar than for instance an Epiphone Dot.

It might seem slightly churlish to look this closely at an instrument that costs under 200 Euros but if the setup and production was as it was supposed to be, this guitar would constitute an absolute bargain, as it is, it's a good guitar for the money and a hundred odd pounds spent on a luthier sorting the frets and giving it a proper set-up will make it favourably comparable with guitars costing 3, 4 or even 5 times the price.

TLDR A good guitar with a few small production issues that need to be sorted to make is a great and very usable guitar.

NOTA BENE: However I have to mention that Thomann's choice of couriers is far from the best, UPS are absolutely dire when it comes to customer support, they don't do proper tracking (UNLESS you pay UPS extra for tracking info, the best they can do is state it'll be arriving on such and such date, personally I'd prefer Thomann use DPD who give full tracking info at no extra cost and give an hour's slot when the item will be delivered *as standard*, and if you do phone DPD for information they don't complain at the customer for wanting to know when goods will be delivered like it's a major inconvenience to them as UPS do...
Take note UPS, crappy service with no tracking available means you'll lose the gig if Thomann decide their customers are more important than a second rate courier service that demonstrably doesn't function well outside of the United States

I've always wanted an ES335 but could never afford a real one so when this alternative came I had no choice but to make an order. And I'm very happy with it.
If I leave the five stars for the much more expensive instruments every aspect of this guitar is amazing for the price. The guitar came set up good. It holds tune well for normal home use but the tuners are the first thing I would upgrade. The neck is nice and set up well but it's a bit wide so I wouldn't recommend it for complete begginers. The finish is flawless. The sound is good. I didn't buy this guitar for the split coils but it's a nice feature to play with.
The only flaw I can point out is the pickguard that was constantly unscrewing while playin and ended up off the guitar which actually looks better without.

I bought this for my partner, who is a beginner/part time player, for her birthday.

As a session musician and guitar tutor, I looked it over when it arrived.

Well packaged, in 2 boxes, the outer box being very sturdy, with the inner box well padded inside.

It is not a AAAA flametop. Maybe a AA.

Bridge posts not fully seated, but not really an issue.

Tuners, ok, solid, hold tune, intonation needed slight adjustment, action ok.

Pickups, great for the price, and with 8 combinations, plenty of variation.
Neck a little dry, but no big deal.
Screw on scratch plate not seated properly, which will require fixing.
Pots a little loose, pull ups fine.
Frets a little scratchy and will need a polish.

This is an entry level guitar, but you get a lot for the money.
It sounds good with lots of scope for variation, the cleans are sparkly, the mids and lows have a nice bit of grunt.
It plays very well, isn't heavy, and I found the neck very comfortable.

I think you'd be hard pressed to find better at this price point, and for a beater, mod project or practice instrument it's a bargain.
Get it set up right, and you could gig with it.

Sure, there are a couple of issues, but I've seen worse on much more expensive guitars.
All in all, I'd recommend this guitar; great price and real value for money.

I returned an HB-35 due to an incorrectly placed/installed bridge which didn't allow the 1st and 4th strings to intonate correctly. I was otherwise very impressed, so decided to upgrade to the plus. Unfortunately this guitar also had a similar issue - the scale length was about 1-2mm too long. Rather than send this one back too, I looked into replacement bridges with a longer saddle travel. I bought a relatively cheap Gotoh bridge (GE103B-T chrome) which slotted on perfectly, solved the intonation problem and noticeably improved the volume and tone of the guitar. I'm now very happy with my purchase!

Pros:
-Great sound - lovely warm tones and surprisingly useful coil split sounds
-Gorgeous looks. Some slight imperfections, but nothing I'm bothered about
-Great value
-Very easy to setup. I had it playing nicely in minutes.

Cons:
-The aforementioned bridge issues - I guess I was just unlucky.
-The nut is a touch high.

Overall I am very happy and have fallen in love with this guitar. I recommend the Gotoh bridge i mentioned to anyone wanting an easy upgrade to their HB-35.

I always wanted a 355... but could not afford one, after buying several HB guitars from Thomann I decided to get the HB35, ordered the HB 35 cherry exellent playable guitar. But it had a fault on the female input jack. returned to Thomann for a repair and was told by Thoman that the truss rod was shot. Then Thomann released the HB35 + I rang thomann paid the difference and 3 months later recieved my HB35 +.this guitar was of a very poor quality build/ finish and non of the hardware was seated correctly. Rang Thomann and asked for a replacement and asked for this checking out as now I have recieved 2 x HB35's with faults.
I was told that thomann tech's would look through the stock and try to find a good one for me ??? or I could have a refund.
My next HB35+ arrived 3 weeks later with exactly the same faults rather than wait any longer I decided to re-finish the guitar myself.
1, Removed strings and threw in the bin FLAT.
2, Tapped all the hardware spigots " home"
3, Re cut the nut and bridge string slots to correct position.
4, Tightened all the 10mm nuts on the tuners and tuner screws up.
5. Stoned frets and polished/ oiled fretboard (dry as the sahra)
6, tightened the pot nuts and 3 way switch (all loose)
7 tightened up rhe strap studs.
8, removed scratch guard screw had cut into the paintwork.
9, tighten up screws in pickups and adjust.
10 tidy all wiring up through F holes.
11, Sort replacement strings through Thomann.

To summarise after 5 months waiting for a 355 clone I now have an exellent guitar. Thomann have been fair all through this dilemma, I think because Thomann have been on backorder with these guitars that they have been rushed through production and the build quality has become an afterthought.

Would I go through this all again YES YES YES brilliant guitar (KIT)

Thanks for your continued support Thomann :-)

The guitar is well built and paint job is superb! Its a good looking guitar!
The pickguard is poorly cut! The tuners could be better but they do the job.
Bridge and tail piece are fine! Nut is well slotted.
Tone and Volume pots work well and the push-pull is working smoothly. 3 way toggle is functioning well.
My guitar weighs 3,6kg and feels much lighter than that. Perfectly balanced when on shoulder or on the knee. Its not bottom heavy at all. One can play this without getting tired.

The pickups sound awesome in humbucker mode but not so special in single coil mode. The single coil mode sounds to me almost same as humbucker mode but with less volume. That said the humbucker mode rocks the blues all right!

The flame top on my exemplar is visdible. I know of folks receiving tops with not so much flame but mine sure has it and it looks great. Came set up very well but frets need polishing!

Not as good as I expected, but OK for the price. Previously received CST-24HB was in much better condition.

Pros:
Feels good, like to play it.
Finish is almost flawless.
Looks nice.
Pickups sound OK and electronics works as expected.
Tuners ares smooth.

Cons:
Fretboard is dirty.
Frets are almost unfinished, flat at top and with grinding marks, bending is hard.
Nut slot is routed at angle and nut is therefore at angle. String cavities are ok, so it will not affect string height, but looks weird.
Logo sticker is scratched and couple of millimeters off.
Scratchplate design looks bad.

I'm able to fix those issues, otherwise I'd need luthiers help.