Harley Benton TE-52 NA Vintage Series

I've been playing guitar for 50 years, have 11 other electrics inc original USA Fenders, Gibsons, PRS, Patrick Eggle etc. I was knocked out by the overall quality, playability & tones from this budget 'Tele' guitar. The finish, neck, electrics & tone were just excellent. I bought it based on several youtube reviews that were spot on.

I have a 1988 USA Tele Standard & I've played various custom shop Tele's and the pickup tone from these Roswell pickups is blindingly good, especially the neck p/up that sounds better than my USA Tele & the Custom Shop Tele's I've played. A few things to note: these guitars are quite heavy and can vary between 8.5 to 9.5 lbs - mine weighs around 8lb 12 oz. But the neck is superb and makes it amazingly comfortable to play. The stock tuners are serviceable but not great. I upgraded mine to Wilson Deluxe to keep the same vintage vibe but with superior 15:1 smoother tuning. I also had to polish the frets and there were a couple that had to be smoothed down a touch at the ends, but for a guitar at this price point that was no biggie. The chrome 3-piece saddle is fine and intonation was pretty good, but purely out of personal preference I put on Wilkinson brass compensated saddles for more accurate intonation. The only real issue I had with the guitar was that it had microphonic feedback on the bridge pickup. Originally I thought it was the pickup itself and (great service from Thomann) they sent me a replacement pickup. But I found out on 'The Fretboard' forum that it was actually the pickup base plate vibrating - a common theme even on USA Fender Tele's that have the same thinner vintage style base plate. All I had to do was take the base plate off and put some very thin foam or blutac (I used the latter) between the base plate and guitar body, and voila, problem completely fixed! If you should need to do that, you'll need a good power screwdriver as the 6 screws holding the plate are very tight...it will save your wrist and avoid the risk of you ruining the crosshead screws.

Overall this is a terrific guitar, and punches way above it's price-point and it is my go to guitar that's been on my guitar stand almost constantly since I've had it.

I've owned a few HB's over the last few years, all great guitars and unbelievably good for the price. This follows that trend with a couple of small irritants that could easily be rectified.

As everyone says, it's heavy, but I don't mind that so much. Fit and finish great, except for two things:
The tuners are "vintage" type, which means no hole through the side of the shaft so you have to stick the end of the string in the hole down through the centre. I've never been a fan of these, but with this version the hole isn't very deep so it's all but impossible, without the aid of a matchstick-as-plug, to keep the thinner strings in place whilst wrapping them round the pegs. Not ideal if you break strings regularly at gigs. Secondly, the ferrules on the back for the through body stringing are very loose in their holes, and simply fall out if there's not a string to hold them in place. Again, not great if you break a string gigging, and the ferrule falls out on stage. Maybe that's why they give you the option of stringing through the rear of the bridge assembly itself....... The right size holes would help immensely. I took the drop of superglue approach.

Anyway, other than those minor problems, all fine. Action out of the box needed lowering a lot (and I don't like a particularly low action), but intonation was pretty much as good as it gets from the 3-saddle vintage-style bridge assembly without need for adjustment. The fingerboard is quite patchy in colour, but not unattractive.

So a solid four stars.

Hands down, for the money, you can't beat this guitar! After unboxing, and tuning it up, I started playing. The intonation was perfect! I stretched the strings a bit, re-tuned, and she stays in tune perfectly. Tuners are smooth. Sounds great through my little home practice amp nice twang and bite, everything you'd expect from this style guitar. Some people have commented that the guitar is heavy, and it is, but I don't think it's to bad. The only other thing is the frets on mine were a bit rough, but I'll file the ends and polish the tops when I change the strings. Really glad I bought this guitar!!

Mijn eerste Harley Benton, en zeker niet mijn laatste. Ik heb de gitaar nu een maand of 4. Speelbaar out of the box. Ik heb enkel de actie verlaagd. Geen scherpe randen frets, frets zijn mooi glad, de intonatie was zo goed als perfect. Bendings zijn makkelijk op deze gitaar. Sliden gaat als boter! De nek is dik en voelt fluweel zacht. Ik kan weinig negatiefs zeggen. Enige minpuntje is het gewicht (aan de zware kant) en de tuners. Al blijft de gitaar wel goed gestemd. Pickups zijn goed. Warme diepe klanken zijn mogelijk op de bridge pickup en de typische scherpe Tele-sound heb je met de neck pickup. Als het gewicht voor jou geen rol speelt, niet twijfelen om deze te kopen. Prachtige gitaar! UPDATE na 1,4 jaar: Het gewicht hield me wat tegen om de gitaar dagelijks te gebruiken maar ik speel er nu bijna dagelijks op en dit weegt niet op tegen het geweldige gevoel om op dit instrument te spelen. Ik sta nog steeds versteld van de kwaliteit voor deze lage prijs! Niet te geloven eigenlijk! Wil je een kwaliteits-Tele tegen een belachelijk lage prijs? Kopen dan! Als ik zelf een prijs op deze gitaar zou plakken: minimum 500 tot 700 euro waarden. Zonder twijfel.

Out of the box the build quality appears pretty much flawless. Body finish is immaculate mirror gloss? no visible dents, scratches or scuffs etc. If these are either two or three piece ash, I can't see any join ? it looks like one piece of wood.. Nice chunky but comfy neck and all hardware seems to do its job well. Fret job feels good with no sharp edges that I can feel at all and nut seems well cut. This IS a heavy guitar, but not an issue as I'm just a home player . this guitar just feels amazingly solid. All the classic TE tones are here and the Wilkinson p/ups definitely seem worth the extra bit of money.


A couple of very minor issues. Fitted strings show some oxidation and feel a little rough.Frets look and feel like they could do with a bit of a better dress or maybe even just polishing up will fix this . Some grime or gunk on frets which may be the cause and greyish blob of what I guess is polishing compound on the fingerboard which looks like it will pick or polish off. Also control knobs seated at very slightly different heights and volume a little bit off being true parallel to body. The very highest black dot fret marker is a bit smudged around the edges which again may well polish out.These are very very minor and wouldn't normally even notice them. Any of the above issues I'm sure could be found on guitars 2 or 3 times the price.

Who should by this ?

I have a few mid lower range electrics ?92 Squier Strat MIJ , Epiphone LP Special, Yamaha and promised myself my next guitar would be a ?proper? TE. However, when I heard about HB guitars and what you get for a very low price I changed my thinking. I'm an occasional home player who likes to have variety of guitars for different moods and tones etc. I don't gig and whilst this may not be the sort of guitar that would survive years of touring without some upgrading, it does what I need it to and does it very very well. Seriously when you look at what you get for the money, its amazing how HB are doing this. Forget the name on the headstock, based on feel, tone and build alone you would think you're playing something a lot more expensive . I've never played a ?real? TE or vintage or custom shop model so can't say what they?re like but it's hard to see how the big manufacturers justify some of their prices when you see what you get with this HB.

Get one !!!

In general, the tool is normal. But there are a couple of little things about the technique, it's:
1. The upper threshold, the strings get stuck in it after each band.
2. The frets are not polished and the strings slide badly on them.
There is also a shoal on cosmetics, at the first inspection of the guitar, I immediately noticed that the varnish on the back of the neck was falling off, but I thought that I could live with it. But in the future, the varnish continued to fall off in other places. I wrote about this situation in support, but still have not received a response.