Harley Benton BigTone Trem Vintage Orange

I bought this mainly for writing melodies and chord progressions while unplugged. But since I am firstly an acoustic guitar player I also found this to be ergonomically more convenient for me than les pauls or strats. It is bigger but it sits better. I'm also used to rather heavy gauge strings in my acoustic playing so this felt home in that respect too. But, sad to say, this did not stand the test of time at all. It does not stay in tune and the jackhole is unstable: if not tightened regurarly, it may fall into the body of the quitar. What a pity, I really liked this guitar, but as such it is practically useless.

The guitar is beautifully finished and the fret ends are reasonably smooth - no problem there. The setup wasn't to my taste, though. The action was too high and the strings were too thick. I also noticed after removing the strings, that the frets were not properly levelled, but that is what I expected for this low price. So, I levelled the frets, changed the strings to 10 - 46 flatwound and set the guitar up to my taste. And as I changed the strings I changed them to go OVER the front bar of the vibrato tailpiece, not under. Now the guitar feels almost perfect. The acoustic sound is quite usable and strong, and the pickup sound is nice, too, but since I didn't have this kind of guitar before, I have nothing to compare it to. Overall, I think the sound is somewhere between LP humbucker and strat single coil. It stays in tune surprisingly well, at least with moderate vibrato usage. Conclusion: If you are willing to do some setup work with this guitar and know what you are doing, you will get a decent guitar with a very low price tag. If you expect perfect guitar out of the box - it might not be for you.

I've never bought a guitar by simply clicking on internet page (till now, as I bought two guitars this way within a month). So I was a little sceptical about outcome. After 40 years of playing guitars I had and still have eight guitars in my 'herd' and each one of them was purchased in shop or second hand but also tested before. Nevertheless I risked and ordered this rockabilly beauty without trying it. Out of box and at first glance it looked really awesome piece of instrument but I was also prepared that it might be necessary to tune this instrument to my desires and style of playing . By reading other customer's reviews I recognized that tremolo system doesn't meet expectations and I doubted that the choice of the correct strings that come with guitar is D'Addario .12-.56.
So, here are CONS : (out of box)
-tremolo system is inappropriate. It has front bar that shouldn't be there because strings that run under it cause too much pressure on the bridge,
-action is too high,
-as I mentioned before original strings are more like heavy cables (as far as I'm concern),
- it was impossible to turn one of pots (I already thought about returning shipment),
-there was still some scrap wood inside body and hardware is lacking of finesse (it does not affect the sound)
And now to the brighter side and PROS :
-first con is easy to avoid. Just restring and lead strings above unnecessary bar. This will release tension on the bridge and also give you feel of smoother bigsbish style tremolo. It is unnecessary to pull out the bar as I saw in some video, just leave it alone and guitar will retain its beautiful appearance.
-to setup action I changed strings to obviously better and suitable set of .10-.46 (same manufacturer) and then with Tune-o-matic bridge set action as I prefer (very low). Of course I checked before that that neck is perfectly straight. It was.
-Trouble with the pot mentioned above was also easily solved. I examined it closely and found out that the knob was to close to the body plate and it was jammed. So I unscrewed it and positioned it appropriately.
-For scrap wood I used vacuum cleaner.
After this procedures it turns out that this is very good guitar with nice variety of tones, from jazzy and blues to rockabilly sound. It also have nice and expected sustain, (anyway ; with pedals you can easily change sound as you like, or you can change pickups for some expensive ones, BUT?this guitar, as it is, offers so much for really moderate money). For me the most important features are: comfortable neck, the possibility of low action and 100% accuracy which is, I think, enabled also due to floating bridge and smooth tuners. As I read in some forums many guitarists have problems with positioning floating bridge. With this guitar tuning is very simple and accuracy on 12th fret is easily achieved and guitar stays tuned for days.
Final opinion : Very, very good rockabilly guitar for moderate price. Not for beginners but for someone with at least a little understanding and knowledge in customizing guitar.