Harley Benton TE-80 NT Deluxe Series

I've been craving a T style guitar for a while but wanted something that sounds more akin to a strat than a traditional tele. Lo and behold I spied the TE-80. In person the guitar is even more gorgeous than the photos, the one I received has the wood grain matched really well on the front and back. The binding on the neck and body has a few blemishes and are the only part of the finish I have any issues with, but with a bit of tactful wearing in these areas they will be hidden over time. Out of the box the guitar played ok but not well enough for anyone with a feel for how a guitar should play herein lies the caveats to this guitar. I lowered the action myself as it was a bit high out of the box and this improved things but as expected with a guitar of this price it required a visit to my luthier to set up properly. The guitar required the following issues rectifying:
-Full fret levelling and removal of sharp fret ends some of the binding had got onto the ends too so this was filed off. Some of the frets weren't seated properly introducing buzz as well.
-Truss rod adjustment, the neck was concaved out of the box- expected
-Intonation was out but only slightly would have been done regardless as the truss rod adjustment was essential
-The nut fitted on the guitar was rubbish so I had this changed out too
-Electrics all cleaned properly
-Action set nice and low (personal preference)
All in this cost me around £100 extra but with these adjustments the guitar now plays like something triple the £266 I spent on it. It sounds amazing and I'm still experimenting with different tones with some fiddling I have got some nice punchy strat tones and you can get the twingy twangy tele sound with the selector switch on the bridge or middle position. Also really nice for funk sounds as expected for a prince copy. I'm using 0.8's on it again this is personal preference but they sound very nice. Finally as it has an ash body it is really heavy (almost 3x the weight of my epiphone les paul) I'm in my early 30's and have a couple of shoulder/back issues and it's right on the cusp of being too heavy for me for long periods so if you are playing on using a strap its worth considering.

After trying out various Harley Benton guitars (Sc custom II, Dc600IV, ST62DLX) I had to get a telecaster shape guitar. The Harley Benton TE-80 NT Deluxe Series is not the average Telescater you might expect. Personally I found out it sounds nothing to a traditional telecaster but it’s not necessarily a bad thing. The sound is closer to a Stratocaster and the only time it sounds like a telecaster it’s when you play the pickups in the middle position.

What surprised me the most was the weight on this guitar. I think it easily weights around 4.5 kg but if you have a solid strap the weight gets distributed.

Tight out of the box the guitar presented itself spot on perfect. It’s actually a first for me, since all the previous Harley Bentons I bought required some work or at least a small upgrade.

Proceeding with the PRO’s and CON’s:

PRO’s:

- the guitar has a superb flame finish and no bangs or flaws are present. It really looks like a boutique instrument;

-The fretwork is nicely done and you can bend for days on it;

- the electronics are nicely done, nu hums or scratchy noises;

-the nut is just fine, but I might change it in the future;

- the tuning keys work okay, but you need to tighten with a screwdriver for better results when tuning, although they will most likely be changed with Kluson tuners;

- strap buttons are alright.

CON’s:

-I would like if Harley Benton would put the actually weight of their guitars in the description. Not that I have a problem with a guitar being heavy but it might help in the future.

- the guitar neck has the right size (personally I like chunky necks) so I can’t tell if the neck should be thinner, but I dislike the unfinished feeling. Feels like somebody rushed the process. The ST62 DLX has a much better finish on the neck.

- string trees are kinda flimsy and they look cheap;

-rather than putting just a simple single coil int he bridge Harley Benton should consider adding from t he factory humbucker single coil style pick-ups, I think more people would appreciate that.

- on the Thomann website when scrolling thru the The Harley Benton TE-80 NT Deluxe Series photos I noticed on the back of the headstock that is made in Indonesia, mine has MADE IN CHINA. I understand it’s all about production cost but please be HONEST WITH WHAT YOU SELL. Personally China or Indonesia makes no differences to me as long quality control does their job.

- this guitar passed QC on the 2020-12-26 LGQ. It takes them a while to get shipped.

All in all this guitar is cool and I will keep it as it looks fantastic! Harley Benton did a good job and for 185 euro's you get an instrument that puts to shame a lot of more expensive brands. Keep it up team Benton!

To be honest I got a little bored and needed a project again and decided that this time around It would be the HB TE-80.
When I finally received the guitar I was impressed with the overall looks and pretty good finishing. I cleaned the guitar, did smooth all the frets and spend a couple of hours adjusting the saddles and neck as action was way too high. All in all a very usable guitar taking the price into consideration.
However, after a couple of days I knew the list of items I felt needed to be changed.
Here my list of changes:
1) Bridge saddles as I could not find a bridge with same measures. So I kept the base plate but just changed the saddles with the Highwood Guitar Parts HG-10,50 Vintage Saddles (Thomann).
2) Replaced the nut by a Graph Tech TUSQ XL F-Style Slotted Nut (Thomann)
3) Due to dead spots in the tuners I replaced those by the Harley Benton Parts Locking Tuners 6L Chrome (Thomann)
4) all electronics got replaced by Fender 250K Control Solid Shaft pots, Fender 3-way switch, Fender Control plate Tele, Fender Tele / Precision Bass knobs, Allparts Switchcraft 1/4" Mono Jack (all from Thomann) and an Emerson Custom paper in oil capacitor 0.047 UF.
5) For the pickups I opted for a custom order from Heartbreaker Guitar Pickups in Belgium.
6) Replaced the pick guard, bridge plate and jack plate by the MAD CAT PLATE set created by Tim from Scratch-IT! GIG.INK. Was a perfect fit and looks a million dollars. Web link: in all I am pretty happy with the results, but did spend a fair amount of money on the upgrades.
Things a have to get use to compared to my other way more expensive guitars are the neck and weight.

My guitar arrived fine, but there are a bunch of places where the binding isn't pretty. No shielding on single coils and a knob that appeared bent out of the box. back of the neck had some rough spots, not sure how this didn't get a re-sanding touchup on the back of the neck before it went out. Biggest "huh?" was the nut. A hollow, plastic nut. Not good.

The guitar is heavy which I love. The neck has a narrow profile and a C shape that is much like a telecaster. I replaced the tuners, nut, string trees, pickups, bridge saddles and all the electronics and now have a really sweet guitar. Well worth $150. I treated it like a kit and because of that I can say was a home run. Just be ready to do some work and if you get one like I got you may want to send it back if you're not going to be able to fix it up on your own. (I don't care about the binding, but the back of the neck was NOT sanded well)

This was my 2nd Harley Benton. The first was the Fusion-T HH Roasted SSP which is amazing (with new pickups) so perhaps at this price point they are just not checking QC thoroughly when leaving the factory.

If you like Prince. If you like a heavy guitar. If you want to mod it to make it your own you cannot go wrong with the TE-80

Even with all the issues I would buy another Harley Benton in a minute! And Thomann has been great to me.

Let me start off by saying that I'm a guitar technician/instructor, and repair, setup, teach with and play guitars almost every day.

First, the good:
This thing plays and feels great!
The Setup was good right out of the box and perfect after some tweaking.
Sounds great as well.

Now the bad:
When I first plugged it in, Nothing, no sound.
I Opened up the control panel and started looking around. everything looked fine but after poking around it turns out the switch is bad, seems to be one of the lungs was not making contact.
I bent and moved It around and it started working.
It is one of the cheap import type switches which I expected and was already planning on replacing with a 4 way switch, but for a beginner or someone without repair experience it might not be such an easy fix.
The finish is beautiful but there are a couple of small flaws on the top, a little black spot just under the control panel and a larger (approx 3mm) light spot (Maybe a drop of glue?) behind the bridge. Nothing major but worth mentioning.
The frets felt a little rough and needed a bit of Polishing.

Overall, it's an awesome guitar for the price and I would definitely buy it again, but there is room for improvement.
Thanks!