Harley Benton ST-70RW Deluxe Series

I have my fair share of HB Guitars and even the TE-20 was a good guitar after some mods...
I ordered the TE-70RW because I needed a stratlike guitar, and since I have VERY VERY happy about my TE-70, I chose this one. Its being used for some heavy, funky blues and in that content I had troubles with the pups. Too noisy and a lot of uncontrollable feedback in high gain settings.
So, I changed the neck and bridge pups for SD Cool Rail and Hot Rail and kept the Roswell in the middle. At the same time I chenged the pots for 500k including a P/P pot to be able to use the Seymour Duncans in single coil mode.
I did not expect such a versatile range of tones - this is absolutely amazing - all 9 tones sound great and are extremely usable. So now it is a 5 star sound !!
The rest of the guitar is very well build. It is pretty heavy but feels great. The frets were accepable - no sharp ends but it took a lot of polishing to make them smooth.
The cosmetic look is stunning - no flaws what so ever, very nice tremolo. After some time i changed the tuners to locking tuners and installed some rolling string trees. Now I have sold my Fender Roadhouse guitar as this one gives me so much more fun to play.

Recommended

GREAT
The biggest surprise on this guitar is how good the pickups sound. I've previously used Seymour Duncan, Dimazio, Kent Armstrong etc as well as countless OEM rubbish and these Wilkinsons are of Seymour Duncan quality. Proper alnico slugs, quiet, nicely bright and clear but with a dark poke when needed. Hank Marvin to Yngwie at the flick of a dirt pedal. No need to upgrade!

The Trem is also a quality Wilkinson unit with a HUGE inertia block. Very solid sound, returns to pitch every time (once I'd set it up, see below). Wish the grub screws had smoother tops, though!

The body is solid basswood as advertised, not plywood as is common at entry-level price. Well finished with high quality routing that fit the pickups snuggly - i.e. no horrible 'swimming pool' gap under the pickguard! Rosewood laminate looks great in the flesh and the headstock is immaculate.

GOOD
The tuners work and look ok. Electrics are all 250k pots, no noise and smooth travel. Tone pots are the usual exponential taper so only really work over a small part of their travel, which is normal but could be upgraded. Neck is a chunky thick-ish D profile with big frets. Didn't hold its tuning AT ALL at first, but settled down once I stretched the brand new strings.

Action as supplied was stupidly high, brought it down (using supplied tools) to almost fret-level and there's no buzz at all. Very impressive.

BAD
Action as supplied is absurdly high (as above), trem screwed back tight against the body. Easy enough to adjust it all so it plays beautifully, though, so I've this is your first guitar then look on YouTube on how to do basic setups to get the best out of it. Fret board was dry and some ugly dye spillage was visible. I removed the strings and rubbed it down lightly, then applied Lemon Oil for a smoother, uniform appearance. Still has the 'open' texture of rosewood but no longer feels like I'm playing on a stick I just picked up in a forest.

UGLY
Frets had slightly sharp ends in the upper octave, I fixed it with a small file, didn't take much work. Worse is that the frets don't feel like they've been crowned completely, leaving a very 'scratchy' feel when bending strings. I don't have a crowning file so I'm going to play it for a few months to see if it fixes itself. Real shame, but not a deal breaker.

Whereas the hardware is mostly of decent quality, the jackplate has some bubbling on the chrome plating - yuk!


SUMMING UP
The high quality of the pickups, trem and body/neck materials mean that this guitar sound amazing - easily as good as Mex Fenders costing several times the asking price.

The poor finish to the frets is a disappointment and, initially, makes it feel like the entry-level guitar it is. With an hours work, however, it's starting to play and feel much more like a decent instrument.

It's now hanging on my wall between a Gibson Les Paul and a high-end Ibanez and its currently my guitar of choice, just because it sounds EXACTLY like a great Strat should sound. I don't care about the name on the headstock.

Upgrade-wise: I might get a Teflon-type nut and some roller string trees to help with the tuning (ok as is, but I like using the trem). I'll replace the tone controls with a master tone pot using a spare Fender Delta Tone I've got laying around, just to open them out a bit. Maybe add an active boost on the other pot. And I've already replaced the big chrome scratchplate screws with small-head black ones, just to make it look that tiny bit more badass. And I need to change that crappy bubbled jackplate for a black one.

I'm probably being hard on a £125 guitar here - it sounds like a £600 guitar and soon it'll play like one!