Harley Benton SC-Custom III Active WH

It arrived yesterday, well packaged, without any damage. Double boxed, the interior box has an inner layer of foam too, so the protection is spot on. Included black strap locks, which is a plus, but to my surprise it also came with a battery, already installed! Thanks!

The instrument looks stunning, without any flaws. No sharp fret ends, frets need a bit of polishing, but I was expecting it. It also came well set up. Tuners and knobs turn smoothly. The inlays are as precise as they can be, the bindings are "interesting" (more below). The nut is just a piece of white plastic, although it is well cut and well installed without excess glue.

My first general impression is as good as it can be, although upon deeper inspection I met some minor inconveniences:

1. It does not have a push-pull tone knob. Yes, I know, the product description on Thomann website does not say it should have, but the Harley Benton website does say so in the description. I pulled the knob off the shaft, only then I removed the cavity cover to look inside. The specs list on the Harley Benton website also does not mention it, so I guess is just a typo, but a heavy one, at least for me.

2. The knobs tend to rub the surface of the body when turned. Raising them a little bit solves the issue.

3. The cavity cover of the switch has got two layers of protection film on the exterior - weird. Also it is different from the cover of the other cavity: this one does have an inner shielding film, the other one does not - also weird.

4. It is equipped with mini size pots. I don't know fi this is the standard procedure or not with active pickups, but the guitars with passive ones from the SC-Custom III family have full size pots. They work fine, they are OK, I was just expecting something else.

It has a super shiny finish that is slippery on clothes and sticky to the hands. Using a strap is a must.

The bindings are flawless, although it surprised me that the plies are "not on the surface". I mean they are there, but they appear to be under a layer of transparent epoxy having a thickness of at least 1 mm. It looks good, is just visually challenging at first sight.

All in all, I am very happy with my purchase. I play guitar only as a bobby, and - even considering the listed issues - this guitar is far above my expectations.

The Harley Benton SC-Custom III Active WH Guitar is extraordinarily high quality and amazing value for money. Straight out of the Box the Harley Benton guitar impressed, a beautiful guitar with a perfect finish, a very well cut graphite nut, very low string action of less than 2mm at the 24 fret, perfect neck relief, all factory specifications are exact, and the sound quality is excellent. All the precision that has been put into the build on this guitar makes it an extremely comfortable and easy guitar to play.
I've been playing guitar for 55 years, and I have many guitars in my collection, this Harley Benton guitar feels and plays just as well as my Fender and Gibson guitars, and I can see that this Harley Benton guitar is going to quickly become one of my favorites. If you want a new guitar that is exceptionally well built, and is remarkably good value for money, and is also a nice guitar to play, then the Harley Benton guitar is the guitar for you. The team at Thomann Music are great people and can help with the entire range of Harley Benton guitars.

A minor quality issue(s), which is why I have given 4* and not 5. Where the fretboard joins the binding, there are minor cracks (cosmetic). The stings are a bit corroded and the fretboard timber is very dry. Should be fixed easily though with new strings and some lemon oil. I am changing the tuners, although good quality, I prefer locking tuners. Pick ups are powerfully and clear sounding. All round glad I got my hand on one!

Spoilers, prepare for some HB glazing!

I got this and an LTD EC 1000 for myself as a birthday gift and wow, wow, wow. The quality on the HB -- at 25% of the price of an LTD -- is just unbelievable. The neck feels pretty much the same, just a little wider on the higher frets. The hardware is lower quality, of course. But that's something that in the long term is very fixable!

Pros
- Visually stunning, no flaws in the finish whatsoever (the 3-ply binding could've been whiter in colour, or pure black -- just my opinion)
- With some lemon oil on the fingerboard, it's dark and looks perfect.
- The locking strap buttons are a great addition offered by this model
- Setup from the factory was great (1st time ever seeing such a good setup!) Neck was flat, action was medium height. After changing to slightly heavier strings (10-52)0 - the setup remained the same, so the neck is quite stable.
- The fret ends are beveled and rounded very well, the leveling isn't perfect but it's pretty good.
- Most of the frets are decently polished (although doing it yourself will make the guitar so much better).
- The bridge and other hardware is a little bit better than entry-level quality, but if you get a Gotoh or TonePros replacement later, that gives this guitar a long healthy life!
- The Tesla active pickups are very nice too, that is a personal opinion of course.
- Lighter weight compared to the LTD (HB = 3.25KG, LTD = 3.85KG) - just so comfortable!

Cons
- The nut is made of hard plastic, and doesn't have the same feel as a graphite or bone (or fake bone) nut. So I will be swapping that for a Graphtech XL (PT 6642-00)
- The tuners are not bad - but I replaced them with HB locking tuners for the convenience. Come on HB, this is a metal guitar, give it Jin-Ho locking tuners!
- The 3-way switch and output jacks are something that can fail sooner, so replacing them adds extra cost but that's overall negligible compared to similar built guitars!

For the price, I can't even fault this. Everything I would fix/upgrade would be possible for €150 euros, or €300 with labour costs. But having a perfect guitar at the end of that is such a great deal!