Harley Benton ST-62MN BK Vintage Series

122 Customer ratings

4.6 / 5

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88 Reviews

Harley Benton ST-62MN BK Vintage Series
£129
Including VAT; Excluding £10 shipping
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Standard Delivery Times
Delivery approx. between Friday, 5.04. and Monday, 8.04.
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d
SADDLES NOT USEABLE - AND THAT'S JUST THE BEGINNING
danielausparis 28.05.2020
Hi folks, so just to make my major point very clear : the saddles that come with this guitar are not useable. Others have pointed that out already, but I insist : if you buy this guitar, think in parallel about buying a set of good saddles made from machined metal. You'll find the HB ones for 11 euro here, they seem not bad at least.

The original saddles are made of cheap thin stamped metal sheet and the thread in them holds approx. 1 second (just looking at them is enough, it seems) before it breaks, of course.

This big failure has to cost a lot to Thomann managing all the complaints and returns. But that's their choice, after all.

The neck feels good and is nicely playable. The pickups are basic ceramic and will do for a while. The plastic nut is a weak point however, it plays ok as is today but it won't last very long I fear.

The tuners are low-end copies of vintage Fender tuners, you will upgrade sooner or later.

The major surprise is the sustain, a real pleasure. This thing achieves nearly the sustain of my massive Hagstom super swede, and that is telling.

To conclude for now after a firts glance and a bit playing : all in all a very pleasant surprise for the sound, the neck, the sustain. Prepare for changing the saddles and for a setup, however.

Update 3 weeks later
Folks, first thing I decided to change the nut, replaced with a graph tech because I did'nt want to spend too much time with a bone nut. I can however testify, for having used both, that the latter is the wiser...
Second I discovered the same problem another review had : a huge dead zone (yes, 'zone', not 'note' !) impacting the first 3 strings around the octave. At the time i did not see a proper solution and put the guitar in a corner. Very sad.

Update 1 year later
I decided to do some major intervention on the guitar, since i still wanted a strat-like guitar and had none. As i came to the conclusion that the neck itself was the cause for the dead zone, i decided to take a limited risk and bought a replacement neck from our chinese friends at alibaba for 20 euros. Also, I bought a set of Tonerider pickups (i have very good past experience with them) and a set of Kluson tuners.
To my surprise and delight the new neck really came to my door a few weeks later!
The guitar was now in for a major surgery. The whole operation took a few days of careful work, in particular the new neck need a bit of wood work to adjust; a careful geometry adjustment had to be made, and a good setup as well.
The result surprised me completely. The dead zone, as i hoped, had disappeared! And for the first time, the guitar was indeed playable! The Toneriders are marvelous, as are the new tuners. A completely different instrument that I could really have fun with! And the initial qualities (sustain notably) are still there to my delight!

Conclusion
This guitar should be really viewed as a toy and out of the box, it will not satisfy even beginners. Sad but honest. However, my story demonstrates that there is a way out, and that you may be able to finally get a true instrument if you are willing to pay and to work.
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PS
Don`t read the headline only!
Photosynthetic Shrek 11.09.2018
I`ll keep it simple and clear

Neck:
- Out of the box straight neck, nice action, pretty decent intonation, no sharp fret ends
- Rough frets, polished them with fret rubber and now they are smooth and shiny
- Thick neck, like really fat. Not complaining tho
- The finish on the back of the neck restricted hand movement a bit, so I sanded it down to matt with 240 sandpaper - much much better to play.
- Weird sound on D and G string from 12th fret and higher. Sounds like the notes are out of tune with itself and they die out quickly.

Hardware:
- Tuners seemed to be tight and fine, but changed them out to locking ones anyway
- Neck plate had this plastic base thing, got rid of that cuz it kills sustain (atleast so they say)
- The bridge is firmly against the body

Pickups:
- Middle pup is RWRP. So in theory the pickups are hum-canceling on postition 2 and 4.
- Sound is good, twangy and dynamic. Can`t compare with real strats, because I simply don`t know.

Electronics:
- The pots/knobs turn quite densely
- Needs to be shielded with copper tape, buzzes pretty loudly when not touching metal parts (I play with rather high gain)
- CHECK THE GROUND WIRE ON SPRING CLAW. Mine got detached because the claw is aluminium and solder won`t stick to it well. I put the wire between the coils of a bridge spring.
- Checked everything with multimeter. Everything is grounded and work as they should.

Other things:
- neck fits tight into its pocket which is nice
- the sustain is okay
- not plugged in the guitar sounds woody, and somewhat closed.
- the finish is great, pickguard edge has some uneven spots, and the finish on the edges of fretboard has been sanded off, probably in the progress of working with fret ends.

And that`s about it.
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D
Playability superb!
Dusko 04.10.2017
I needed a Strat style guitar for some serious modding. Plan was to make me self a Super Tweakable Strat. I got me self a G&L passive treble and bass harness with a 7 way switch option (neck-bridge, neck-middle-bridge).

This guitar did not come without flaws and will immediatelly name them:
there is a transparent patch on the black body. The faactory simply applied too little paint on that spot and it passed QC. No big issue for me but sure will complain about this to Thomann as this should be sold as B-stock.
The frets are very rough! They were leveled and crowned by the factory but no one though of polishing them. I will have to add few hours to fix this.
Some one chipped into the paint at the back of the guitar several times. One can clearly see it was done on purpose. Not sure why but I can live with it since it is at the back (also complained to Thomann about this expecting B-stock price)

These were the bad points, and now the positive :D

The neck feels great! The frets leveled nicely (only need good polishing), no buzzing no sharp edges! Nut well cut (plastic probably). Tuners work well.
The bridge is well placed and is in line with the neck (this was an issue on 2 Harley Benton guitar I bought in the past). I am still to test the tremolo, for now its locked in.

Pickups sound fine but I decided to swap them for Ironstone Silver pickups instead.

The white pickguard looks cheap and I have swapped it for a 4 ply brown tort PG and now it looks awesome :D Maple fretboard, black body, brown tort PG and ivory pickup covers, silver tone/volume knobs! Looks and sounds like a 1000 Eur guitar now!!!
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DH
Great guitar, Great neck, Great buy...
Dean H. 04.03.2016
Just received my ST 62 and must admit I am very happy with it. It's 6th e guitar from HB and after selling my previous 4 (only for a change as they were also great guitars and not losing too much ££) I decided on the ST 62 to mod to set up as a Gilmour "black stratacaster". Change pickups to Fender fat 50s, 69 & Seymour Duncan ssl5 incl fitting a micro toggle switch to bring in the neck with the bridge, fit a black s/plate, 4 1/4" whammy and v-t knobs with green lettering' all for under £300, wow a saving of almost 2k!!!!! Also the neck colour is almost identical, so properly set up with a bone nut change and GHS Boomers I'd actually say that's a fab buy.

The overall quality and pickup sound is a an absolute pinch at less than £90, so if your reading this do not hesitate to buy, why spend daft money on anything else. Even if not a Gilmour fan you have a guitar you could mod to your desire fore little money, or simply leave as is. I'm just doing this for modding experience, now I'm actually considering another maybe in vintage white.
Admittedly you may have to set your action, change the nut and sort out the intonation, but hey, not a big deal.

Before this I bought a Dean Zelinsky Private Label at just under £300, looked fab must admit had rusty frets and just didn't feel right (only my personal opinion). I returned it same week and got this and a HB TE40 TBX Deluxe (lovely guitar) with accessories for £250...... best £250 I've spent.

Only bad point,,,,,, looking for a couple more now and my understanding wife isn't impressed.

Advice- Just buy it, thanks.

Ps, I think I have the gilmour pickups correct without checking my buy list.
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J
Harley Benton RULES!!! Love my st 62
JT1995 11.02.2022
Today I got my FIRST Harley Benton and its JUST as fabulous as the hundreds of youtube ads tell you! Im in COMPLETE SHOCK! St62 black. So Im back on the site ordering another one right now!
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HG
Nice low budget six-string
H. Gabor 12.06.2020
As a firs impression after observing and playing it out of the box: this is an awesome low budget instrument. No question it needs a setup before playing it regularly but I expected it after watching some videos about the series and I think it's absolutely acceptable for the price. Anyway, this guitar is beautiful, it has a superb neck (though it's question of taste of course) it's very playable and it sounds great. It is fine as it is and at the same time, I think it can be a good basis for future upgrades too.
I had some minor quality issues but they were not about the construction itself and the very helpful customer service solved the problem immediately.
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M
Banging Strat!
Mraitch 08.07.2020
I have purchased 6 Harley Benton guitars in the last few months (not all for me!) and whilst this was not the most expensive, it's definitely my favourite.
It arrived double boxed and in excellent condition. Almost in tune, well intonated and with a great action. The fret ends were all smooth and comfortable. I'd recently sold a Squier Affinity Stratocaster as it just didn't feel right and anyway it allowed me to try out the ST-62. This is a much better guitar. I was initially disappointed because the neck was satin, rather than gloss (my preference) but having played it for a couple of weeks, I absolutely love the feel of it. I am also happy with the vintage tint of the neck. The pickups are bright and clear. The single pickups are significantly louder than the 2nd and 4th "humbucking" positions but all are quite different, usable sounds. Sweet sounding! There is a bit of buzz from the single coils (I might look at shielding the cavities).
Back in the '70's, it seems that everyone played a black strat with a maple neck. Chuffed to bits with this one. Looking forward to getting together with a bass player and a drummer!
Oh, and thanks, again to Thomann for their excellent service as usual. Buy one you'll be pleased as Punch!
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MP
Better than Squier
Mike Pullin 04.10.2021
In my humble opinion, superior to the budget Fender Squier strats.
A quality instrument that sounds like a true clean strat should. The neck is silky, thin and came with well dressed frets... no sharp edges.
A nice paint job, stays in tune and the Roswell pickups sound great.
These are a great price... and such great quality that I bought a vintage white one too!!
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Z
BUY it Now!
Zigmeister 18.05.2019
I just got my guitar today. I wasn't really expecting much. The box looked like it had been treated pretty harsh. Once I opened the inner box all was well. Out came a truly nice instrument.
I might be one lucky son of a gun, but it was nearly perfect. No blemishes on the body or neck. Switch and knobs were fine. Tuners, nut and strings all checked out. There was nothing to complain about. Nothing! How can this be? Surely the truss rod needed adjustment? Nope. The action was in the stratosphere? Nope, actually quite low. Well then the neck must be seated poorly? Tight as can be. Plugged her in and she sang a tune. A pretty one at that after a quick tuning.
I'm dumbfounded how this is possible. I love the neck on this guitar especially. Fits like a glove. How else can I say this. Take a chance. Buy it!
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AK
Total Disappiontment. Over-hyped guitar.
Andrey Kharatsidi 25.11.2019
I nought this guitar for rehearsals and going to giotar class. Besides Harley Benton I have a wondeful Gibson SG 61' Reissue which is just a fantastic guitar. So, I have something to compare HB with.

First of all. It came with sharp edges of the frets. So it was not very comfortable to play, but after three days the frets became much worse. Not it is dangeros to play HB because you can get injured by theese frets sticking up from the sides of the fretboard.

I am not joking, Harley Benton guitar became uplayable in three days after shipping.

Another thing about the frets. They are very very harsh, so any bends cause that unplesant scrathces and the string just does not slide on the frets.

All this means that if you are not a total beginner, than after buying this guitar you must make fret grooming or even change those frets for a better ones. No one amoung youtube hypers will tell you that unpleant thuth.

Now I have to decide what to do with that guitar: sell it or spend half or even more of it's price to make it playable.

Not reccommended to buy.
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Harley Benton ST-62MN BK Vintage Series