Harley Benton ST-59HM Fiesta Red

I ordered this guitar to play blues and I was pleased with the finish of the instrument in this price range!

General:
- The guitar has a very beautiful flamed maple neck.
- The mounted set 10-46 string gauge is not my favorite but that is a personal choice.
- The pickups are not great but have a very pleasing sound.
- The tremolo system is fine but after a few mild vibratos, the tuning was really out. I would advise any serious guitarist to install locking tuners!
- Even after I blocked the tremolo system with extra springs, after a few bends the tuning was out witch is very annoying. I replaced the tuners with Gotoh SG381-07 MG-T Locking tuners 6L CB.
- One of the string trees was loose and could not be fixed properly, the scew hole was too big, the G string was making an awkward sound. I replaced both with Graph tech string tress and this sounds now perfect.
- The saddles are pretty good although not fantastic.
- I did not inspect the electronics and switches but for now, they work just fine!

The good:
- Very solid basic construction,
- good finish in this price range,
- comfortable neck shape,
- good pickups for a guitar at this price range,
- no fret sprout,
- the guitar setup was reasonably good,
- great value!

The bad:
- unusable tremolo without locking tuners,
- poor tuners, even if you don't use the tremolo,
- string trees are not of good quality,
- some adjustments are to be made.

Final thoughts:
- If you are a beginner this is maybe not an ideal choice, especially if you don't want to fiddle with too many ajustements.
- but this is an excellent guitar for people that want to do upgrades.

I have been a guitar teacher for over 45 years and owning a good Fender Stratocaster player series, I am very pleased with this Harley Benton guitar after having done a few upgrades and adjustments.

A great value, thank you, Thomann!

With the ST-59HM, you get a quality instrument at a great price! It plays and sounds great. Expected some minor, inconsequential flaws at that price and was pleasantly surprised when I found none! I use it for playing at home with headphones, as well as amps. With the great prices, it is good way to acquire a number of guitar types for variety and not break the bank. I am extremely pleased with this purchase.

Everything works as expected. The gold tuners work well and look terrific. The nut is much better than some of the other Harley Bentons I own, with no sharp edges. The frets are smooth in all aspects and didn't need to have them worn in when bending strings at any of the frets. I like the pickups. They sound good enough and give you the basic tone one would expect with this style guitar. It's fun to play and I pick it up to play all the time. All the knobs and switches are good and work as expected.

pros - I literally loved every aspect of the guitar. Looks great, comfortable to play with nice sound. A shout out to their customer service too. I changed my orders a number of times for various reasons and they handled every change I wanted perfectly. I really appreciated their flexibility. If you are in the US it will take a day or so for them to get back to you these days.

cons - None really. Only concern is that if you are having it shipped to the US during the pandemic, it is going to take a while, figure 2-3 weeks. This falls on the shipping companies, not Thomann. From tracking it, it sits at the airport for a week or two
and then when it gets to the US, it gets shipped to Chicago more often than not in my case, and the USPS has taken as long as 2 weeks to get to NY. The one order that got sent to NY (by luck), 25 minutes from my house, sat there for days and ended up taking a week once it got moving. All of this is expected in these times, but it is frustrating to not see it making any progress, staying in the same place so long. I've had an order prior to the pandemic and it was a little more than a week, basically what they promised. Other shipping concerns are the outside box can take a beating. When it arrives, panic might start to set in, but the packaging inside is great with no concerns. Even when the outside box look damaged, rest easy, the inside boxes that actually hold the guitar are impeccable and strong.

Использую для обучения. Гитара доехала целой - упакована была надёжно. Общее впечатление от инструмента приятное.
Что не понравилось: 1) На накладке есть древесный рисунок и он выглядит как грязь если смотреть издалека. 2) Цвет не такой как на фото и в обзорах, не красно-оранжевый, а просто красный. Не смертельно, но впечатление хуже ожидаемого. 3) потенциометр громкости заметно фонит. На максимальной громкости всё в норме, а когда убавляю громкость - звук стихает , но фонить начинает гораздо сильнее. Это уже серьёзная неприятность, её придется исправлять. Эти мелочи весьма испортили впечатление. Потому что во всём остальном инструмент прекрасный.
Да, сравнивал его с Cort G250 BBL У Сort фурнитура по-хуже, но фонит он гораздо меньше , и потенциометры сильно приятнее. В звуке отличия есть, но описать их я не могу.
Инструмент приехал отстроеный по мензуре, с маленьким прогибом на грифе. Я опустил струны ниже, до 1,5мм на первой и 1,7 на 6 струнах. Ничего не звенит - лады ровные по высоте.

This is the latest ST59HM just brought in June 2021. I already have a earlier model ST59HM circa 2019. there is quite a few alterations to this new model and the quality and authenticity of this new model in comparison is very poor in my opinion for the following reasons . The colour of the "fiesta" red is much darker and has no pinkiness in it at all , more like a Torino red. the rounded countours of the body edges are now much more square. Neither my earlier ST59HM or my ST-62 Harley Bentons are like this. The lovely one piece amber tint gloss neck with a slight V on the back has gone, a 2 piece capped neck is now supplied with a very very pale satin finish. The spacing of the double dot E markers at the 12th fret are almost on the edges of the fretboard and look ridiculous. The authentic split post vintage tuners have now gone. There are also 2 string trees fitted now , poor choice there. The bridge saddles have been changed from '59 correct pressed steel to the cheaper cast type. The tremelo arm is very long
( something Mr. HM would surely not approve of ) and does not have a tip. A positive however is that the trem does come with a full size block. Sound wise the guitar is pretty good .
Now I understand that this is a budget guitar, but so was the previous model, so why make all of these, IMO, detracting changes .
My intention now is to use the guitar as a basis for a project, starting with neck replacement and re contouring of the body edges and a more realistic "Fiesta" red finish. Thomann you had a winner with the previous model , but sadly IMO not with this one .

Lovely guitar-as well finished as my Fiesta Red Stratocaster, low playing action, good Strat sound from pickups ( always an option to change if you want to later)-and very well packaged. Still in tune despite the trip from Germany! The only slight quibble I have is that having made a Hank Marvin tribute guitar, with the gold-plated fittings etc.,HB didn't quite get the Fiesta Red match right. Compared with my own Fiesta Red Stratocaster it is slightly too red rather than that slightly faded pinky-red of Fiesta Red. I could respray, but the finish is so good, it would be daft to do anything other than leave well alone. Highly recommended.
An update 9 months on. Guitar still excellent, and holding tune even when not used for a few weeks ( I have 14 others....).One thing I did do was change the very good supplied pickups for Fender 57/62 single coils, and the sound is now indistinquishable from my Fender Classic player Strat. the only difference I can feel is the the Harley has a v-shaped neck-something i had not really cottoned on to until recently. Takes a bit of adjusting to after the c neck of most of my Strats, but it cerainly aids chord-playing. Still highly recommended, and well-worth upgarding to better pickups.

I last purchased a guitar some 7 years ago (the thing was unplayable out of the box), it cost maybe 5x what the ST59HM did. I wasn't sure what to expect at this price range.

Apart from a slight blemish around the neck pocket, the finish was flawless. The Fiesta red colour looks pretty authentic to me, in general the attention to detail is very pleasing.

My experience here tells me that this would be an ideal guitar for a beginner as all that was needed in order to start cranking out some Hank Marvin stuff was a slight tuning.

An experienced enthusiast on a tight budget would love this guitar, spending a little time, no sophisticated luthier tools to end up with a guitar that looks and feels more expensive than it is.

Starting with the neck relief, it just needed a slight loosening of the truss rod, I went with .009 inches at the 8th fret based on the radius, the truss rod seemed nice and smooth.

The vibrato plate was flat against the body out of the box, I wanted it to float a little, that trick with 'Post It' notes in combination with a small amount of adjustment to tension of the springs got my desired 1/8th inch vibrato plate height above the body easily.

A little string height adjustment was needed, 2mm and 1.5mm was easy to achieve on the bass and treble sides respectively, although I've had to order some shorter grub screws as the stock ones protrude too much with the lower saddles.

The intonation was pretty much spot on out of the box, just the high E string being a little sharp.

The frets feel comfortable, no sharpness encountered at all, I gave the frets a good polish and lubricated the the nut etc. (I lost the high E string during the process, a replacement set of 10-46 strings ensured the previous changes were unaffected) Other than that there's nothing else that needs doing with this guitar.

The ST59HM is the least expensive in my collection, but could well end up one of my most played guitars.

It is a wonderful guitar, playable, clean & crystal sound.
5 pickup position you can find useful sound,
I really love the Alder body, not too heavy and belance sound.

cons- few minor cons you have to know before buy

1. there's a pit hole at guitar back body, maybe caused by hitting I watch other people bought this guitar have the same problem,
it is not a problem for me, but depend on you

2. You have to do some minor adjust ,
it is fair you buy a quality guitar online at low price, so you have to learn to adjust string action , neck curve for your playing style, I strongly recommend you buy a guitar gauge and tool set

3. the maple fretboard is super smooth and beautiful, but it is too slip~ really too slip...sometimes I can't hold a chord very steady.

Overall it is a wonderful instrument, you won't regret