Harley Benton SC-DLX Gotoh Daphne Blue

Hormis les pick-ups, que je trouve un peu faibles en termes de signal et manquant légèrement de précision sonore, la guitare est très agréable à jouer... et à regarder.

Le seul défaut visuel est le sillet, qui a jauni en un rien de temps, dommage.
Sinon, à part changer les cordes, j'ai gardé le réglage d'origine, les frettes sont bien travaillées, l'action est bonne, l'accès aux notes aigües bien dégagé.

Je l'ai achetée par curiosité, étant un énorme "guitar snob" et possédant une collection de guitares de prestige. Alors bien sûr, on sent la différence mais c'est un instrument tout à fait convenable pour peu qu'on ait un ampli qui permette de compenser le léger manque de punch des micros. Je l'ai offerte à mon neveu comme première guitare, ça fait un cadeau qu'il pourra garder longtemps, pour une somme dérisoire.

Looks on this guitar is amazing, honestly if I would have ordered a custom made single cut guitar by a luthier, the features would have been quite similar to this:

- Stainless steel frets
- Volute in the headstock
- Thinner than a Les Paul with comfort cut
- Blue or pink satin finish (well, blue in this case). I don't flavor high gloss finish too much.
- Binding
- Two volumes but only one tone
- Coil split
- Gotoh hardware, non-locking tuners.
- Bright pickups (I would not have thought of Tesla, but I love how clean they are, the PAF that had my Gibson LP sound as if you had put a blanked covering the amp). The Tesla's lose volume with split coil, but that is to be expected. Sound doesn't reach as far as a strat, but it is quite bright and spanky, I love it.

Believe it or not, this was the single cut guitar I had in my head before Harley Benton launched this one. I would have asked for CTS pots, but this ones are Alpha, no need to change them for now.

Things that are not so good:

- Neck dive. Yes, the awful neck dive, not everything can be perfect. Guitar is so cool that it doesn't took me down. I put 200 grams of weight in the control cavity, not totally fixed the dive, but is much much better, with a strap with good gripe is not noticeable. Weight WITH the fix: 3.7 KG, out of the bnox around 3.5 KG.
- 2 frets are not perfectly leveled, but I noticed only measuring it, I don't feel them while playing. All in all the fretjob can be considered as well done.
- 2 of the 3 screw holes of the control plate where dull, but still the screws hold position.

And that's it. Honestly I can't fault this guitar, I think is an awesome instrument for a very affordable price. A branded one with the same quality for sure would be over 500 € and I would not count on the stainless steel frets at that price.

Update 10/10/2022
I have had an issue with the paint on the guitar. It has had a bad reaction to light, in that the parts exposed to normal day light have bleached to a much lighter shade. I dont know whether this is just mine, or if they will all react like this. However, I contacted Thomann, and they have agreed to take the guitar back and give me a credit for the price I paid. Once again, excellent customer service from Thomann.


I have the 550 2 which is superb, this is as good. The Gotoh tuners and bridge are flawless. The pick ups sound fantastic, in my opinion. The guitars fit and finish is amazing. Can't fault this guitar at all. You can pay £700 for the epiphone equivalent. It's a no grainer. I have quite a few HB guitars now, and aparrt from one or two cosmetic issues they have all been excellent. Why pay silly money, when you can get quality like this at a decent price.