Harley Benton ST-Junior BK Standard Series

Out of the box all very well packed in bubblewrap etc. Very nice finish. Intonation was very bad, hopelessly out of tune on 5th fret and sound pretty yuk. Changed the strings to my favourite ones (electric guitar 0.010 top) and hey-presto - as near perfect as I can tell! Lovely bright sound well balanced across all 6 strings with no need to adjust pups height. I lowered the action by one turn per string at bridge/saddle (my personal preference for action) and gave a small tweak on bridge intonation screws - got the octave perfect and string to string at 5th fret, well as near as I can hear. Don't touch the truss rod - looks properly set for fret board bow. I play through a Fender 25 bass amp (10 inch) to get nice sound. Don't expect same through cheap battery amp with 3 inch speaker, I've tried. I'm talking proper clean tones here, much more demanding than distorted. Tuned to A low i.e. same as normal guitar with capo on 5th fret, hence just use normal guitar strings. The 5 position switch works as standard strat with positions 2 and 4 giving some of that fender twang and also hum cancelling, so I assume the middle pup is reverse wound/polarity as it should be. One result of small size is that pups are close together so not so much differentiation of tone /sound as on a full size. Came with free jack lead. Just remember that like any (single coil) guitar the pick up height affects the tone, I prefer my pickups very low for a more mellow tone.

I bought this mainly to play melody lines of English ceilidh and folk music because the range of first finger position from low A to high C# matches most of all published music books in that genre. Hence wanting clean sound. I love it, it's great fun and nicely satisfying for melody lines. Chords sound fine as well to me, but being short scale you have to set your tuning accurately with a proper tuner. And for the price its amazing, and fine for me, then again - I'm not a pro. I don't see this as just a child's instrument. My star ratings apply after string change.

For kids and beginners this is a great little guitar. And for the price it's a best buy. But be aware of weight.

Pros: pricing, great build quality, good frets, nicely finished. A great beginner guitar.
Neutrals :) Pickups are somehow what you would expect at this price level, not great sounding but you could always replace them. Although I think that's not the point
Cons: The guitar is is on the heavy side for its size, especially as it's meant to be used by kids. And tuners are on the cheap side and you can feel that every time you need them, which is quite often.

I enjoy playing and modifying small electric guitars, and the Harley Benton ST Junior looked like a good candidate with an even better price. It took less than 10 days to arrive at my door here in Los Angeles, California. My first impression out of the box is quite favorable. Playability, sound and overall quality is good. The design seems to have changed a bit from the photos on the web site. It's no longer "top loading" string bridge, but rather a string-through-body design, similar to a Telecaster. I can verify a previous reviewer: the body does have a "swimming pool" route under the pickguard that will accommodate any style and configuration of pickups if one is so inclined. I already modified the wiring to the "Dan Armstrong Blender" circuit, and changed the strings to heavy gauge in order to accommodate normal EADGBE tuning. This requires setting the saddles for intonation, and some filing of the nut slots for thicker strings. On the "con" side, The frets are slightly sharp on the ends, though not too bad. Also, when changing the strings, I found the string ferrules in the rear are not tightly fit in the body at all. They fall out when there is no string to hold them in! Be warned until they fix this flaw! The bridge still has the top loading holes if one wishes to use them instead. All in all, I think this instrument offers a good value for someone wanting the novelty of a tiny electric guitar and works reasonably well with its intended tuning right out of the box. Not only do I recommend, but I'm thinking of buying another already.

I bought this guitar for my son and I confess that I had some doubts regarding the quality and sound it had, but it was a pleasant surprise

The size makes it easier for my son to play and the sound and quality of the material is quite reasonable considering the value of it, does what it is proposed to do.

The order arrived fast and very well packaged and everything is fine inside.

Comes with connecting cable to the amplifier that do the work

I will definitely recommend this guitar to all my friends who want to offer their children a good first guitar to start in the world of music.

I bought this guitar for my 8 year old son and he loves it. As it is a small guitar it fits perfectly onto his lap and isn't too heavy for his to hold with the elbow whilst playing. The guitar came fully set up and a quick tune and it was ready to play. The only negative is that this guitar is tuned to A, rather than the standard E tuning, this could be because the strings that are supplied with this guitar appear to be 10's and tuning to E might put to much pressure on the neck - when the strings are due a change, I might put on a set of 9's and try a E tuning.
The guitar fret work is smooth and no fret ends to catch your hand whilst playing. The neck is quite wide, not too wide for a child's hand. With the cut away body it is possible to get right up to the 21st fret.
Hardware consists of three single coil pickups which are bright and sharp sounding. A 5-way switch for the pickups, a volume and tone pots, all which do exactly as they were designed to do.
Sound wise: as I said the pick ups are bright and sharp sounding, I am used to humbuckers and thought these might be a bit too harsh for my ears but roll of the tone pot and it has a pleasant sound which is quite warm. It does take a bit of used to hearing a guitar in A tuning, so playing along to songs following a tab might prove a bit difficult as you will be in the wrong key, but again this is a minor issue.
A good starter guitar for children.