Harley Benton JA-Baritone BK

After waiting a few months for this to arrive and frantically watching videos about it online, it finally arrived today!

I was worried about possible QC issues and/or electronic issues since rumors about HB guitars have been coming forward a bit more the last year or so (my personal experience with HB products has been only positive), however I am extremely excited to say that the neck and frets feel as smooth as my most expensive guitar, the stock pickups being house-brand sound surprisingly good.

Only minor points, if you can even call them that, are the plastic tuners (which personally do not really bother me for the price and feel sturdy enough), the glossy neck (this is personal preference and I had no issue running up and down the neck) and the fact that the fretboard does not seem to be oiled (which is a 5 minute job).

Overall, I cannot recommend this guitar enough to the baritone lover. I actually wanted it for low-tuned metal which it can absolutely do (with some extra gain and stuff) but nevertheless have caught myself being sunk into its expressive cleans, so I do think this guitar has a lot of possibilities and its p90 pickups have an interesting character. For 199 euros and these features I didn't even care to examine it for dings and scratches and so far I have seen none, plus I have not checked the intonation but this can also be easily remedied. Absolutely great instrument!

I'm going to start by saying I've never been so impressed by any instrument relative to its price tag. The build quality is great, the neck is fantastic, the bridge is solid and adjusts smoothly, the pickups are clear and punchy and the whole instrument looks like I paid five times as much. the frets could do with a tiny polish but I'd be pleased with the shaping and ends on a guitar costing far more. The pots are smooth and clean, and the tone control is probably the most useful I've ever had across its entire range.

I've brought the action down to 1.5mm bass side and 1mm treble, and there's not a hint of buzz anywhere, which is astonishing. I did have to put a bit of extra tension on the truss rod and discovered that it's already cranked to the max, which is worrying but hopefully something I won't have to touch further.

I haven't had any issues at all with microphonic pickups or grounding so I presume that was an early thing. The only things I would note are that the selector switch feels very notchy (even though it works perfectly) and the tuner heads don't inspire confidence, especially with this amount of tension. No problems as yet though.

Get one, but book time out because it's hard to put down.

I thought this would be fun to pick up for the price, and I expected the usual with a new guitar: setup is funky, nut was cut too high to leave you room to lower, fret sprout, some uneven frets or notes to get choked out when you bend high...Pretty much the how my 2021 Epiphone Les Paul Prophecy came.

This guitar blew my expectations away! No fret sprout, no uneven frets that I can tell after a few hours on it, action is actually really good, and virtually NO cosmetic defects (one small ding about 2mm wide and 1mm tall, you really have to look for it). The neck is smooth, the frets don't stick out of the finger board at all, the pickups actually sound really good. I was anticipating replacing the pickups...but I might just leave them for now. I DO want to replace the plastic tuners with some locking metal ones that will feel better and be easier to work with, but this thing holds tune very well actually. Electronics are good and not scratchy and don't pop. The frets do need a once over with some steel wool, but that's perfectly okay.

You want this? Just get it! If there's a lead time that just means you'll get a nice surprise from yourself in the future. So glad I ordered this when I did and didn't let a lead time scare me away. Great job!

Here’s the nitty gritty: in a sound test, this guitar fooled colleagues. I re-recorded songs I had originally done with a custom Kiesel 7-string on this Harley Benton baritone, and no one could say with any certainty which recording was the $3,000 guitar and which was the $200 guitar. Do you know how absolutely insane that is?

Here are the notes broken down based on recording, and notes on the guitars:

Custom Kiesel 7-string: 26.5” scale, Fishman Fluence pickups. That’s the difference.
HB JA-Baritone BK: stock, tuned down to drop G#

Listener blind notes on the Kiesel recording:
- More clarity and shimmer in clean passages
- More note separation, slightly less “mud” in chords utilizing GBE strings.
- More fizzy midrange in heavy passages, not pleasing to ear

Listener blind notes on the HB Baritone recording:
- Cleans sounded a bit “flatter”
- Heavy passages had way more balls/grit/drive — overall listeners really liked the bite offered by the P90s
- More sustain — one song had guitars ring out at the end, and it was noted that the Baritone rang out for nearly two measures longer, roughly 6 bars in 4/4

That’s kind of it. I love how it feels and how it plays and how it sounds. The 30” scale takes some getting used to, and if you deal with hand/wrist pain already, this may not be the guitar for you. That being said. This is a $200 guitar that, in a blind test, competes with a $3000 custom guitar. I can give it no higher praise than that.

I will also note that playing down-tuned music *feels* better on the longer scale length. I actually tune it all the way down to F# now without needing to get thicker strings. Those wanting to tune down to E or Db will need to get thicker strings.

Whenever I want to put money into it I will likely get higher quality tuners. The only part of the guitar that feels “skimped” on is the tuners, in my opinion. Still, a 5-star instrument all around.

Pros:
Immediately fell in love.
The body shape and the weight feel right. Note I'm 6' tall with larger hands, and I play Danelectro BT66 just fine. I now prefer the Jag body style over the BT66, which puts me in a predicament. I would consider buying a second HB Jag Bari because of the price and the modifications you could make.
The pickups are dirty when they need to be. I use a Quad Cortex as my central amplification, and the clean sounds clear. No complaints about the pickups. The neck pickup sounds better than my Dano BT66 neck pickup.
Overall the string setup is not great. It could use new strings from Stringjoy (my favs). I tuned it to a standard A tuning which it took quickly out of the box. So far, its stayed in tune.


Cons:
Poor shipping. The guitar did have some padding in the box, which was in a box that didn't fit the first box. I was lucky the guitar wasn't broken.

All said I would repurchase this guitar and most likely will as a backup.

If you aren't a guitar snob then this is a pretty incredible guitar for $166 USD (sans shipping). I would expect to pay at least least $300-400 minimum if this were a brand-new Squire not currently victim of a price-gouge trend due to a certain band that some folks absolutely LOATHE...

Anyway, I bought this guitar because I've always wanted a baritone and was curious about what a 30" neck would play like after having just bought a 27" for my first baritone. I had to do some research to make sure the price wasn't a scam because I'd never heard of Thomman prior to seeing this pop in a baritone group I'm in on FB (shoutout BO). Once I was assured enough to place an order and then 3 months after the backorder had arrived, I was blown away at the quality of the build overall. All of my frets were even with no edges poking out. Intonation was fine but I haven't gotten around to replacing the factory strings and tuning this to my preferred tuning yet, so out-of-the-box I'd say it feels great. The sounds is fine/"just okay." They're exactly what you'd expect from a lower price-point guitar, no crazy noise but nothing to write home about. I plan to likely upgrade the pickups to SD P90s just because the better quality in general, and because I like to play with wires from time to time.

It comes with a replica Hipshot bridge which looks great but if you've played a Hipshot before then you can feel the quality difference between the real-deal and a copy (I have no idea if it affects the tone, but for sake of spending money I don't have then I'm just going to pretend that it does and eventually replace it with a legitimate Hipshot). As some have said already, the tuners are plastic so those will be the first thing I replace when the time comes. Unfortunately at the moment, this guitar is behind two others that take priority for mods at the present moment.

Overall, considering the price point in comparison to the product I received, I'd give this a 5 out of 5 but I had to be honest about the sound and quality when rating. They're pickups! They're definitely P90s! They sound like P90s in $166 guitar... take it for what it is ;)

I think they're hitting the nail on the head with so many of these Harley Benton guitars.
This thing can go really low.
The quality is a bit of a wide range of a gamble. Sometimes you get no issues, sometimes you get a guitar that requires some work.
The finishing leaves a little to be desired, but that is expected at this pricepoint.
The frets could use a little work.
The electronics are kind of messy. Low quality parts and wiring, but there also seems to be bad connection somewhere.
I don't mind tinkering and I knew this before I ordered, so I will have a look at it myself.

I ordered this guitar about a week after their initial release and received mine about 3.5 months later, which was quite the wait but I was prepared and had no rush. I had read about the plastic tuners and ordered a set of nice locking ones to replace them right away, but honestly the stock ones are just fine. The machine heads I ordered had two faulty ones in the set (yay) and I am using two stock tuners for the time being, and if I could go back I would not even bother changing them out. The guitar was set up for B standard out the box and played surprisingly well. I put a set of .24-.84 gauge strings on mine and set it up for double drop D#, it intonated with no problems and loves it. Fit and finish is 4/5, a couple of lacquer stains around the fretboard edges, there is some glue squeeze-out around the frets, the fretboard was completely bone dry and the fret ends have a little bit of bite to them, but nothing major and for the the price, acceptable. Hardware-wise, the pickup switch feels pretty low quality, it is weirdly squeaky, but so far has worked fine. The volume knob is a little noisy when dialed, which I have seen in other HB guitars as well, so before using live I might have to get the wiring looked at. Overall, still, exceptional value and definitely loads of fun! The P90's might not be everyone's taste, but I really love the spanky tone and am excited to use it a lot in the future.

I got it to use as a Bass VI, as I wanted to experiment with chords on the bass but didn't want the single coils on the standard Bass VI, plus this one looked nicer. It needed work, but the 20-90 strings fit. Pickups sound amazing, best stock pickups I've ever had on an instrument, and it's also a very nice-looking guitar. It's worth noting that there was a small dent on the fretboard, albeit a small one, it's weird because the guitar was very well packed and the box was unharmed. 4 stars on features because the tuners are plastic which I really didn't like, but that's all.