Harley Benton TE-80 NT Deluxe Series

I was very excited to get this guitar, as a huge Prince fan it's very cool to have a pretty close replica to his Madcat. The sound is great, it feels great in the hands. It's very heavy, but not ridiculous. The neck is incredibly thick, which I thought would be something I hate, but I find myself not minding. Overall the guitar sounds and looks great. For $200~ with shipping, this is a great deal.

However, onto the bad. It sort of feels like I got one of the B stock models. There are several blemishes on my brand new guitar and that is extremely disappointing.

There is a large nick in the pickguard near the neck pickup, the volume and tone posts are bent, there is a gash on the top of the headstock, there is a clear knot in the neck, there is a 15-20mm crack in the pocket of the bottom horn where the neck meets the body, right above that there is a large scratch in the binding. This is really disappointing, especially the crack.

From afar it looks great, but it feels like every time I pick it up I find a new blemish. If this is the regular stock, I'd hate to see how bad the B-Stock models are. It also makes me a bit hesitant to buy from Thomann again if the quality control is this low. Which kinda sucks, because there were a few other models I definitely had my eye on which I had planned on grabbing if this one worked out.

Overall, it's a beautiful guitar, plays, and sounds great. Just be ready for the possibility it arrives pretty beat up right out of the box. For $200 it's not the worst trade-off in the world, I suppose. An inexpensive beautiful great sounding guitar, with poor QC. Which kinda stinks, since QC is one of the easier things in the process to fix.

Edit : Just picked it up and found another crack where the body meets the neck, this one splits off into two separate cracks. So basically the entire neck pocket is cracked on both sides.

I've had this guitar for a years now and I think it sounds really good, bright and warm, I think they have different pick-ups now, mine were Wilkinsons. I was a bit disappointed with the flame finish as on my guitar it does not look finished and there are two areas of dark areas of dense varnish or lacquer and the flame is quite minimal. Although this does make the guitar look a little more like Prince's worn Madcats. The neck is also slightly out of line with the body but only noticeable upon close inspection. The frets needed dressing and I also replaced the machine heads and bridge for Gotoh parts. I also bought a scratchplate and bridge scrathplate set. The nut isn't great and I will replace soon. I didn't bother to report this when I got the guitar and I did buy this guitar expecting to to replace parts. I have used it for loads of rehearsals and some gigs (after my alterations) and it has been really solid and as I said above it sounds great and let's be honest, they are very inexpensive.

My first TE-80-NT was damaged in transit but the folks @ thomman sorted it out very quickly and with the minimum of fuss, thank you. Sadly the guitar they sent me in its stead was just awful, gaps in the neck pocket-the bridge has been put on skewif making the lower scratchplate out of line with the top scratchplate-the so called setup was way to high when I made an attempt to lower the action the high end notes choke, very very disappointed with this guitar it will be the last Harley Benton I buy the st 20 I bought a year or so ago is a far better instrument than this guitar will ever be. So, the guitar I received was put together in a very sloppy fashion I hope this is the exception because thomman as a company deserves better, quality control on the other hand needs some serious attention.

Like most I bought this guitar for its proximity to Prince's Madcat - no other company seems to offer anything like it and, if they did, it would probably be twice as expensive

So the good:

- It was affordable

- It looks great on the stand (although the pickguards aren't my preference but they can be replaced easily)

- Youtube and written reviews suggest its a very good guitar for the cost.

-It arrived quickly and safely to the UK even over a busy Xmas/New Year period

The not so good:

- Its not perfect quality by any means -
1) the stain on the fretboard has small areas of natural wood where its been missed

2) the pickup switch knob had sharp 'tags' from the molding

3) the switch itself wobbles up and down slightly

4) one of the machine heads was much looser than the others and the decorative stickers on them have fallen off already

5) the frets were unbelievably rough (and still are in places) which really grated against the strings when playing

6) the screws holding the knobs and switches in are wonky and sit up at an angle where they've not been put in straight



Having said all of that, based on the guitar itself, I think I would definitely order another