This is my first HB guitar, and my first budget guitar, too. I've bought it to try a 335 shape out and see for myself what's the hype is about. I've been playing for more than ten years now (though I'm a bassist first and foremost), over the years I've had many expensive instruments - Gibsons, Fenders, what have you, so my expectations were set high. And so far, I'm very impressed with this axe, I like it a lot. There's some room for improvement, more on this below.
It's a very attractive, visually striking instrument. The contrast between the blue metallic top and the yellow of the back and sides looks wonderful. It looks much better in person, the photos don't really do it justice. Here also lies its most obvious flaw for me - the painted binding is made sloppily, with paint bleed and blemish here and there, and that's about the only disappointing factor about this guitar for me. Still, you can't see it at arms length, and the models with cream plastic binding should be better in this regard.
The guitar feels nice in my hands. The neck is comfortably thick yet not so thick as a vintage spec Les Paul, the fretwork is pretty impressive for the price - all the edges are leveled properly, and while the frets could use some polishing, it's nowhere as bad as the reviews led me to believe. Fixing that is a simple quick job with a dremel tool, masking tape and some polishing paste anyway. The nut is made of Nubone and made well. The volume knobs are fine, but a bit tricky to pull out. The tone knobs are very stiff, but workable. The pickup selector switch could be better, it's not a Switchcraft one I'm used to but come on, give it a break - for the price it's fine. There's no scratchiness or anything about it, it's just a bit too clunky for my taste. Changing it won't be too hard either.
It balances well both sitting and standing, and it's weighs 3,7 kg.
The unbranded 16:1 ratio tuners are pretty good, too - they're firm and tight, feel good and the guitar stays in tune well. The bridge has rolled off edges and doesn't hurt your hand, it's easy to adjust - I had to tweak the intonation a bit.
The sound is perfectly good. It's warm and round, with a lot of low end, and you can change it quite a lot with all the combinations of pickups and coil splits. My favourite is the middle position with split bridge pickup, it brings more top end to the sound. Add some dirt, and it still holds its own.
So, the pros:
- beautiful, vibrant looks
- nice sound with a lot of flexibility
- feels good overall
- quality hardware
- set up well out of the box
The cons:
- nitpicking about paint blemishes
- tone knobs are too stiff
- pickup switch is a bit clunky
- control cavity needs some tidying up
- frets could use some polishing
Overall, I'm impressed with Harley Benton. It's a damn good guitar for the price! I can hardly believe the bang for the buck ratio you can get these days, wish I've had something like that when I was a kid. Whether or not this guitar stays with me, I'm not sure yet, but so far it's been good.
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