Harley Benton ST-57DG Black Tribute

At first I was happy with the delivery. At first glance, beauty. The guitar has weight. The guitar neck is elegant, satin and lightly tinted. It is pleasant and comfortable to the touch, straight as a bayonet. The frets of the guitar do not bite, wide, aesthetic. Kluson style machine heads are beyond praise. Nut TUSQ XL, although it does not have a label. The strings lie deep in the nut, but the top can be removed. Nut is set well.
There are no large gaps anywhere, everything is fitted. Still, a little tuning of the string height is needed. The pickups are a little high, but this is subjective.
It is not clear, but the edges of the pickguard do not have a chamfer. Will have to change.
The tremolo system is successful.
Potentiometers are good. 5-Way toggle switch is not heard.
In general, the body and neck of the guitar without flaws.
Sound like a stratocaster can’t be said anymore. It's good.
Harley Benton ST-57DG Black Tribute is no worse than Squire, and in some places even nicer.
In the end, I was pleasantly surprised by the products of Harley Benton. I also bought a JB 75 bass, this will be written in another place. But also satisfied. I can advise friends.

Update: As mentioned below, I have contacted Thomann and submitted a photo of the issue. to their credit, they have given me a £50 credit on my account, which I have used towards another purchase.

Not sure if Thomann will publish this review, but I will write it anyway. Received this guitar on 29/03/2021. It was not in stock at the time of ordering, so was placed on back order, with an arrival time of late February. The QC label has a date of 05/01/2021, so I am assuming the the QC happened at the place of manufacture. This guitar looked like it had been preowned. The black gloss finish has numerous fine scratches all over it. The neck is not properly sanded, and is quite rough in places, and certainly does not have the fine satin finish shown on the Thomann web site. In fact the neck looks like untreated bare wood. I'm not sure why Thomann have allowed this guitar to be sent to a customer, particularly one that has spent alot of money with them. Prior to this guitar, I had purchased 3 others, all of which had no QC issues, and were all of excellent quality. So I am very disappointed with this guitar. I have emailed Thomann about these issues and await there response. Given the price of the guitar, it is not worth the hassle of having to sent it back. So I suppose I will probably have to accept it. As mentioned, I have other HB guitars, and one thing which is very apparent, is that the guitars made in Indonesia are much better quality in finish and built quality, than the ones made in China. I'm not sure why this is, but it is certainly the case. If this review is published, I will update it in due course.

Let me first say I returned this guitar for mainly one reason; the fretboard radius is more like 14". I love my strats with 9,5"-10,5" radius so I couldn't really play this guitar the way I can. The neck is simply too flat and wide. I couldn't really place my thumb over the neck and I have massive size 10 hands

Apart from that this guitar cannot get anything else but a 5 star review. Value for money is unbelievable. Sure the pots are a bit cheap as is the switch, but they work great. Pickups are very good too. Hardware is also surprisingly good. The frets were all in place, no sharp edges. Sure they need a good polish but that's it. The sound of the guitar is that of a typical strat. This guitar is at the same level as the top of the line Squiers or even cheap Mexico strats. Needles to say they cost 3x more. If you're looking for a budget vintage spec'd black strat you won't be disappointed. Keep in mind the radius though, some may like it, unfortunately I don't.

Also great support from Thomman staff, no problems returning the guitar. I have since ordered another guitar with a smaller radius and ash body for more "twang".

The overall fit and finish is easily as good and in some cases better than many Strat type guitars at higher price point, there were no high frets, no fret sprout and no sharp edges at the ends of the frets and the body seems to be a bit thicker than usual on low end Strats. The guitar arrived set up pretty well though I lowered the action to personal taste, only small niggle was that the e,b and g strings were badly corroded and tonally dead, no big deal but I should've ordered new strings with the guitar, once new strings were fitted the guitar held tune very well even with light trem use, out of interest, unlike the usual for Strat type guitars the bridge is not set floating, it is flat against the body so the trem only works one way, not an issue for me . For personal taste I will probably swap out the pick ups and up grade the electrics. Overall a very good guitar for the money, punches well above its' weight.

I am a hobby guitarist who likes to do my own work on the guitars that I purchase, I currently own 16 electrics, 1 bass, 3 acoustics and a ukulele.

Very Disappointing:
- 5 way switch was working at first, then gradually deteriorated (Thomann authorised refund for new switch and fitting)
- Tone pot crackling, needs new electronics. Pots affecting sound of pick ups, hopefully new pots rectify this.
- Needs major fret levelling.
- Frets were cut unevenly (length of frets).
- High E string catching under frets (poor installation of frets).

A Little Disappointing:
o Small blemish in top.
o Fret markers not aligned with strings.
o Side fret markers sloppily applied.

Good Points:
+ Tuners OK
+ Trem system OK (holds tune)
+ Strings OK
+ Neck is good

If the good people at Thomann don't remove this, you can search You Tube for "650Thunderbird" or "Harley Benton ST-57DG Black Tribute (Strat) Guitar Unbox/First Impressions " to see for yourself.

Update: Thomann replaced this guitar at their expense under the 3 year warranty, the guitar they sent was much better. You can see a You Tube video of the replacement if you search "Harley Benton ST-DG57 Guitar Review (The Replacement)" on You Tube.

I always wanted a DG S type, but could not afford custom shop money. This is a nice alternative. It came setup decent, but I made some adjustments. The trussrod had too much relief, so I tightened it a bit. I was surprised at how good the frets were. No sharp edges and nicely polished. The pickups sound good, so no need to change them. The electronics work fine. The body is supposed to be ash and I guess it is, but a light ash. There is not much weight to the body. the pickguard had a couple of stripped screws and when I removed the screws to look underneath alot of wood particles fell out of the holes and a couple more were stripped. I will have to fix that. Tuners work good, but the trem arm is very loose, so I replaced it with a short DG arm which fit perfectly. It also adds to the look. The bridge came fixed to the body, so I had to put a lot of work into getting it to float properly. The pickguard was mounted a little off and has pits in the plastic, but I am glad to see they got rid of the white stripe. The trem cover on the back was installed crooked and blocks the holes in the bridge when changing strings. I put GFS boomers on it and really like it now. The next step for Thoman to do would be to give it a more vintage radius if possible, since it is the standard 13 like most Harley Bentons I have seen. I do love it and it turned out real nice! The closest I will get to a DG S type. I like the Harley Benton brand. Good value for the money.

I bought this guitar hoping it will come with at least some basic setup. Unfortunately, all of the strings just have this awful buzz, and the guitar is unusable. Other guitars that I've bought through time came with at least some kind of a setup, and this one is...dunno even what to say. I hate leaving bad reviews, but this particular guitar (not saying that the entire series is like that) is just awful. Too bad, I had high hopes and good recommendations from a couple of friends.

Pros - It's a guitar, and it's cheap. For someone who wants a little project, it's probably great. For the end user not so much.

Cons - Based on all the reviews, I thought it was going to be at least half decent. It wasn't.

Breaking it down into the categories that Thomann does first being the features. The Tuners are great they really are and the trem system works fine though the trem arm has to be in purdy tight for it to sit still. The neck is satin and there's no gloss on the fretboard like yer older fenders. The nuts not plastic it seems more like a Tusque or bone nut not entirely sure it aint plastic though and the only real drawback which is the cavity for the truss rod... its fugly like its just a hole... a dirty hole.
Secondly the sound and this'll be mainly the PU's but they aint flat but they aint fat either it's kinda really subjective but this aint the guitar to play some Clapton on let me just say that. It sounds kinda nice though theres very little hum and the PU's arent really shitty but if you want to add a mid boost kit or if you want a fuller sound this aint it.
Thirdly quality like most of Harley Benton it's shockingly good these pieces of kit are easily the best for the price
To summarise this guitar for me is easily the second best i own my first being my ML2 which is insanely good. It feels nice and came setup great with no fret buzz or anything like that... dirty strings though... needs new strings... I have spare strings thank god.