Harley Benton TE-90FLT VW Deluxe Series

This saga has been a bit of a double edged sword for me. Good & bad but ultimately good. The story may be long and traumatic for some, do not judge until the end.

1 s t I m p r e s s i o n s - T h e G o o d.
When I first opened the box I was surprised, it didn't look like the badly cropped image on the site. I was expecting something that looked like it had been used to stir grey emulsion paint and wiped down with dry newspaper. Not so. The lacquer is deep and brings the grain of the wood through the thin paint coat very well, and, I cannot find a joint in the body! I've had reports of a two piece but I honestly cant see a joint.

The neck is smooth with no fret ends and a really nice satin finish, the fretboard is not heavily coated either, it should age nicely, it's a bit too light for me, almost almond, so a heavy gloss finish would be bad. It needs dirt and wear.

Tuners felt pretty smooth and held well but don't look anything special. the nut looks to be cut OK and the neck needed no adjustment out of the box. Intonation was a mile out but so what.

T h e B a d - W i t h S o m e G o o d.
Now it gets a bit messy. My eyes moved to the pick ups. I've never had a Filtertron stye before so it was new ground. Again, finish is spot on, chrome is deep, black is black, but....... the screws holding them to the body had mashed up holes where the cross used to be and were put in at an angle so the heads were a few mm proud of the pick up top and wouldn't sit in the counter-bore.
It was then pointed out to me that the bridge wasn't fully seated, I never noticed, explains the intonation. I screwed it down and it has a bow of about 1mm in the middle. By now I'm thinking shall I return? I'd also found a few minor dents (on the back & neck) & noticed around the bottom horn the paint was thin with runs around it.

I'd had a strum out of the box and she felt nice enough, noise from the selector though, I'll give her a play before returning, for old times sake. And then I p l a y e d her.

I sat with honey dripping out of my ears from the blue notes and cracks in my lenses from the power chords and one massive grin, this was impressive because I'm quite audibly offensive when I play. I had a hard decision to make. Should she stay or should she go?

I emailed Thomann a few times, maybe 1st for guidance, then for a replacement, then for a refund, then a price reduction, then I got an answer. Send it back or sort it at your end at your cost and void the warranty. I was a little bit surprised, and a little disappointed at this as customer service has always been at a level most companies can learn from, but I wrote an email back saying I'll keep it. Why?

T h e G o o d.
To sum it up this guitar is a bit of a lemon. It has many more faults than I've mentioned, mainly cosmetic and a few hardware issues. I'm pretty sure that this is a 1st batch run and things will be sorted soon. I have 4 x HB's and an Epi SG from Thomann and this is probably the worst & also the most expensive, my PB-20 is a Deko, go figure?
This is also T H E best guitar out of them all! Without a doubt. This guitar will rip out your soul and drop it at your local crossroads for some horned imp to collect on the way back from Souls-R-Us.

T h e S u m m a r y.
Would I recommend this guitar? Very much so but don't as yet expect perfection.
If it was stolen would I replace? It wont get stolen as its not out of my hands long enough and when it is I'm sat looking at it.
How does it sound? I don't know, I've had nothing like it to compare. mines like a P90 with a Single on top that drives like a humbucker??? 'Tis Witchcraft.
How does it feel? Like a Telecaster that weighs as much as a Les Paul but balanced.
Would I change anything? Maybe once I replace a few minor bits & void the warranty the neck will get swapped for an amber Strat type but that's a personal thing.
Will I use Thomann again? Of course, but maybe not on brand new product.
Anything else? Yes. Around 1967 a quite large USA company made a mod to a Telecaster, it was pre-thinline, it was known as the Smuggler. Take off the pickguard. This has to effect the sound in a + way?

In a nutshell, my guitar has faults. Yours may not. Whatever, it?s worth it. We buy for sound. Buy this guitar.
The model it's based on when translated sums up this guitar perfectly.

Firstly a word about Thoman's service which is very good. The packaging and attention to the safe delivery is top league. Delivery within their stated parameters.

TE 90 FLT
First to say that I've been a guitarist (after a fashion) since the late 1950's at which time it was hard to get a budget guitar that was even playable. I am also a long term amateur luthier being used to setting up guitars and getting around problems posed with poor necks and fretwork.

First impression is this instrument aesthetically ticks all the boxes. No flaws in the finish, no chips or dinks, really looks the part. Some of the components expectedly have a budget feel, the worst being the string trees, which will soon be replaced . The pickguard is perfectly acceptable but I have glued a stiffener to the rear surface as it was audibly vibrating, due no doubt to the weight relief chamber it covers. The neck is smooth to the hand, but some fret ends will need work with a file. The neck appears straight and required no more than a quarter turn on the truss rod to set the relief. I can find no high spots in the fretwork anywhere which is remarkable at this price point, but the fret surfaces need a good polish to make bending smooth . The nut was Ok but needed considerable re-cutting to get the string heights down to an appropriate level.

Sound......very quiet pups with a P90 influence in the tonality. Tone control offers little in graded tonal range (again not unexpected at this price) . Very acceptable.

All in all an extremely good guitar for the money. I cant give it 5 stars because of the slight shortcomings listed above but Harley Benton is a brand to be reckoned with if you're not a "label" snob

I am an experienced guitar owner and I have played A LOT of guitars.Nuff said about this.

I bought this guitar for 2 reasons:
-It is a beauty.
-Wanted to check the quality of an HB guitar.

First of,if guitars like this,with that price,were being made in the 70's-80s' some well known brands would have closed their BIG factories...
Beginners and guitar freaks are extremely lucky with the guitar production nowdays.
Cheap guitars are extremely well built.Better than some ''rare'' guitars of the old times that worth some thousands.
Buying those guitars has a completely different reason.

The TE90 is a well built guitar and it is just unbelievable that you can have this thing in your collection for under 200 euros:

-Neck is awesome and easy to play.
-Finish 99% perfect(I never care about this though)
-Fret job is professional
-Tuners:They have a cheap feel but it comes as a surprise to realise that they hold the tuning extremely well.
-Pickups:Hmmm..The neck pick up is marvelous.
There is something that I don't like in the bridge pick up.
It's good for chords BUT when it comes to leads it's a little bit harsh.
2 screws were not straight and there is a slight difficulty in setting the desired height.
Too bad they can't be replaced by a normal size humbucker.
Sound wise they are vintage sounding.

The overall sound is something between a Tele and a LP.
NOT something to die for but with a character of it's own and good enough to enjoy playing.

Conclusion:
Don't hesitate to buy this guitar.
Life is short and (unless you have expensive rent) we need cheap,beautiful,quality products that make us happy.
I guess the price will be good for after sale too.
In case you want to add some cash for the rent...

I chose this guitar on the sounds due to the pickups and reviews I have heard. I notice not mant written reviews mention the actual SOUNDS but lots of other issues. The Guitar was my Christmas present and it came poorly packaged and the box it was in too shallow for this model. the volume Tone and selector switch all punctured the lid. Not good but however no damage to the guitar but that was luck,. The guitar is not beautiful in my opinion. Too much whiteish paint and the wood beneth is not particularlygood grain with differences in the grain pattern and some black or dark graining. The neck is a very white bland maple and the matt finish makes it look very cheap. I prefer a Gloss finish. Fender introduced matt neck finishes as a cost reduction then found a "reason" But 70's guitarists were not slowed down by the finish and protecting the instrument is my top priority hence gloss finish is prefered. Maybe if you are Steve Vai you could claim a speed advantage but the feel of the neck is cheap compared to the TE52 and the TE90FLT VW boasts on the headstock Delux which it is not. The Pickguard is rough from the CNC machine, I got £90 guitars with a better pickgurd. The feel of the neck is not HOME for my hands and string tension is on the high side.. The machine heads are fine I never had poor machine heads on a Harley benton. The rest of the hardware is good quality but the guitar is not lookinganywhere near std let alone delux. The sounds are more or less what I expected and this is a diferent sounding guitar to the TE52. The pickups are of reasonable output and give some nice sounds for blues ad funk. However dont expect ritch bass notes to roll off those filtertron style pickups. Also full chords can be a bit cluttered compared to Gibson pickups which articulate every note. The sound is what I got this guitar for and it delivers the difference to compliment my other guitars. So I am Happy but not over the moon. The JA60 for example is far more Delux than this is and will blow you away with feel accuracy and sheer versitility. The TE52 is also a bigger bang for buck.

Let me start of with my disbelief at this guitar. Last time I held a Harley Benton was one of the old ones. Unlike fender the first models are not what you should be looking for. I will mostly be using this guitar to travel with and play at home. Everything this guitar has shown me thus far makes me believe it will be a good guitar for the road too. I would bring a spare but that is true in any case.

The quality of the guitar is excellent. I have as of yet to find any real blemishes in the finish which really surprised me as it was something I was expecting for the price and the brand. All of the hardware seems sturdy but nothing special. It holds tuning well.

At arrival I had to do two things. One is understandable while the other much less so and would it not been for everything else seemingly being on spec it would have been a real worry.
1) some strings jumped out of the string trees but was almost in tune. I just put them back and re tuned. Would have just guessed it was a shipping thing if it wasn't for almost being in tune. Weird!
2) The bridge pickup was lose. As in one of the screws was fully lose and the pickup was attached to the low e-string. The screw was there so I just attached it. Doesn't seem to have caused any scratches or other damages but I felt pretty uneasy about it.

All things considered it's a great guitar that sounds like nothing else I have. I bought it for the filtertron style pickups and was not disapointed. Very surprised of the overall quality after the quick fixes. Will get it properly set-up at some time because the guitar is worth it.

First and foremost, this guitar sounds incredible. Even unplugged, it has a warm, loud and just pleasently musical tone. Driven, the Rosewel pickups have a great raw punch that is more agressive than a normal telecaster. This guitar excells at garagey blues tones, fuzz overdiven funk, and honky tonk style country.

The neck and fretwork are both smooth and beauitful. Serioulsy not a single flaw. The body finish is unique and a sort-of transparent milk-blonde.The pictures on Thomann make the guitar look Pink, but they are misleading. The guitar body is actually closer to the same color as the fretboard.

OK some negatives: the joining of the neck to the body is not well fit. There is a visible gap around the sides between the neck and the body. I compared this to my other guitars and this one is the worst. TBD how this will affect the guitar in the future. Also despite the Thomann quality assurance, this guitar was not set up when it arrived. The action was raised as high as possible, and when i lowered it to playable, the strings buzzed off of the pickups. Once i lowered the pickups everything felt and sounded good.

First of all, thank you for fastest shipping ever Thomann ! I bought this guitar just to have sound between humbucker and single coil. Pickups looks like Gretsch filter ton , but they sound different. They sound warm and not crystal clear with cleans. I use it with boss katana 100 mk2, so I did not try yet with any other amp, but I believe would sound better with tube amps. The color of the guitar is not exactly the same as in the pictures. It is more white. Pickups are nice, warm tone it is not like humbucker or single coil, something very different, but beautiful. Overall nice guitar for the price, I did not have any cosmetic issues, guitar was clean and well protected. Also one sticker came out of the box to hang on the wall ``in case of an emergency, save my guitars`` :) thanks Thomann !