Harley Benton ST-20HH Active SBK

Tämä on ensimmäinen patterikitarani ja edessäni aukeaa uusi ja erilainen soundimaailma. Tähän hintaan ääni ja soitettavuus on hyvä.
Virittimet hoitavat homman ja kielet voisivat olla muutaman millinosan lähempänä kaulaa.
Kitara soi hienosti akustisesti ja mikrofonit ovat soundikkaat.
Sain eilen kitaran, joten kokemus on varsin lyhyt, mutta soittamisen iloa on riittänyt.
Kun kitaran otti paketista, riitti viritys ja voi soittaa. Intonaatio oli kohdillaan.
Numeraalisessa arvioissa painaa myös käytettyjen eurojen pieni määrä.

Halpa ja näyttävä kitara mutta tarvitsi yllättävän paljon huolenpitoa ennenkuin olin tyytyväinen. Kielet olivat aivan liian korkealla. Intonaatio piti säätää. Otelauta oli kuiva kuin sahara joten sitä piti useaan kertaan öljytä. Nauhat ovat hieman karhea, ilmeisesti hionnassa on säästetty. Viritinkoneistot ovat erittäin huonot. Hinta tietysti kompensoi edellämainittuja mutta kannattaa henkisesti valmistautua muutaman tunnin huoltohommiin jos tämän ostat. Itselläni tuo ulkonäkö teki ostoksesta kannattavan.

Bought this after not playing guitar for around 7 to 8 years, previously owned a number of guitars, but never anything you'd call "expensive". Bought this because the reason I started playing were the signature guitars of a certain man from Slipknot, and the price was very good - why not? Arrived in Croatia in 3 business days.

It amazed me that the overall quality of the guitar is much, much higher than the cheap strat copies of just a few years back. Everything is well set up, there are no build quality issues at all and the guitar looks very great to the eye. Frets are well-polished and the guitar needs just a bit of setting up right from the box. I feel like I got a very well-made instrument, especially considering the cost.

The neck is a bit thicker than I'd like, and the action came a bit high from the factory so I needed to adjust it, but other than that the neck is as strat-like as I remembered. Very easy to play, and looks very nice as well. The strings on it are interesting as well - they're .010-.046 which gives you the opportunity to tune a bit deeper right out of the box. I'd recommend buying a set of thicker strings if you plan on tuning to very low tunings of course.

The pickups are possibly the weakest part of the guitar, but they sound good if you don't go crazy on the gain and volume - probably the first thing that many people will replace, but for the price, I feel like they are much more than you could wish for. They can definitely sound very evil if that's what you're looking for - paired with the Neural DSP Gojira plugin it does sound surprisingly close to the real thing.

The fact that the battery compartment is routed already is a big plus, I feel like this makes me want to work on the guitar and modify it in the future.

In conclusion, it's not on the same level as the guitar it pays tribute to, and of course, it's not a perfect instrument. It is a very capable metal guitar, though, and a great platform for improvement. I also bought a replacement Graphtech Nut and some locking tuners for it - but will wait for these improvements when I change the strings.

All in all - amazing value not just for this price, I'd be happy to even pay 100€ more for it if it had a bit better pickups.