Harley Benton ST-70RW Deluxe Series

Disclaimer: I may be a bit of a perfectionist and very demanding.

I heard all the rave about the Harley Bentons and decided to buy this one.

So, here we go:

- Sound was merely meh.

- It seems like absolutely all parts are completely unoriginal, so at best you can swap knobs.

- It hums, which was not unexpected, as most guitars do (especially single coils).

- Obviously, pickguard has unoriginal screw holes and other things. You can't even change pickup covers to Fender originals, as the Wilkinsons are much too small. Speaking of pickups, one of them just completely broke apart at one of the screws, which was 100% not my doing. The pickup had a chip on the middle as well, so it seems it was damaged beforehand as well. It looks to me like the plastic plate the pickup was mounted on was malproduced, as it has lines (air bubbles?) in it. Also, they didn't even bother to spend 5 seconds of fine sanding the edges on the pickguard cut edge.

- Screws here and there are uneven. Tremolo tilts 1 or 2 millimeter lower on one side (pictures of all Harley Benton do not have this). So not surgical precision when drilling and mounting during production.

- Neck was nice, but even that was hardly perfect. No sharp frets or anything, but fret job still didn't look nice. A small chip is missing in the fretboard near the nut at top, and there is glue on one side of the nut, while there is missing glue on the other side, leaving a tiny, visible gap. Tuners seem like they can't hold tune, but that may just be the fresh strings playing in.

- Sure, it is cheap. Just know that in this case, as usual, you get what you pay for. It may be better quality than regulars at this price, but it is not perfect and not completely professional and top quality.

Stupid me (I'm always so impatient), I took off the labels and plastic right away, so I probably can't return it. Oh well...

Conclusion: I wish I never bought it.

HOWEVER, if I had the chance to view the product beforehand in a store (and find one that is in proper mint condition), I would not regret it like now.
In other words, if I could go over it in the store, even if just to rule out the cosmetic things like the neck flaws, offset screws, and slightly out of whack assembly here and there, I would probably buy it.
The guitar body and neck - if in mint condition, that is - would be a nice basis for a project.

I was initially quite skeptical about buying a guitar online without playing it first and this proved to be well founded. When the guitar arrived, I was excited to get my hands on it and to see what it could do.

First impressions weren't bad - the finish on the body was ok for the money and the chrome hardware looked good. Playing-wise I noticed the action was set a bit higher than I would have liked and on inspecting the neck/fretboard I found out why. The finishing on the fret ends were very poor and a couple of the frets at the lower end were sitting too high making a lower action impossible without fret buzz.

On the plus side, the guitar did stay in tune very well even with some tremelo playing and the pickups provided some excellent tones.

However, overall I am disappointed as having read previous reviews I thought you could get a bargain at this price point, but the quality of the neck and fretboard have confirmed my initial fears - "buy cheap - buy twice" and the guitar has been returned.

Just recieved the S70 today.Really impressed.My 2nd guitar from Thomann.Like other reviwes it was a bit of a prob getting the film off .The pickups are exellent,nice clear sounds and the neck is really well finnished, had to drop the action but no problems.You really dont have to spend a fortune on a strat copy when these are about, dont know how they make them for the money.I am really impressed and the service from Thomanns was amazing, a 4 day turn around to the UK.Update.The guitar has developd a bad fret buzz and seems to have lost power in the pickups.I have returned to Thoman and am waiting to hear from them