Harley Benton DC-Junior TV Yellow

EDIT: After testing the guitar a bit more I've realized that the pickup is mounted much too low and because of this the guitar sounds very unfocused, especially on the lower strings. This being a dogear P90 it is obviously not possible to adjust the pickup height and unlike every other P90 I've owned nothing happens when I try to adjust the pole pieces either. I'm starting to think this isn't really a proper P90, at least not with the same construction as a classic P90. In any case, this pickup needs to be shimmed to raise it. Unfortunately Thomann do not sell these shims. To make matters worse these Roswell P90s have completely different dimensions than true vintage spec P90s which means that shims from other manufacturers can't be used either . I can only find the correct sized shims at an online shop that doesn't ship to my country. This means I will have to cut the shims myself which is obviously a HUGE hassle and frankly not worth it. I will probably end up selling this guitar at a loss.

I've also found that the bridge is installed in a slightly wrong position, making it impossible to intonate the guitar 100% (at least with the strings I've installed, Thomastik Superalloy .010). I can get it ALMOST within acceptable intonation but this is simply not good enough.

I can NOT recommend this guitar, even at this low price. To fix all the problems you will probably end up paying more than the cost of the guitar.

My original review (slightly edited to clarify a couple of things):

I've had some amazing experiences with Harley Benton guitars but I've had some pretty bad ones too. This one turned out to be neither. Far from poor but not really that great either.

The overall build quality is decent. The hardware works fine although the tuners feel kinda cheap and flimsy. Not top quality but more than adequate I guess.

I can't say I'm a huge fan of this type of bridge though. Installing strings and adjusting intonation can be a bit fiddly so I wish they had come up with something else. It's not like it's a 100% vintage correct Gibson replica anyway. I've seen more or less identical cheap "DC Juniors" from other "in house" brands too. We're obviously talking about the cheapest possible Asian manufacturing here so I guess designing a slightly more user friendly bridge was never gonna happen.

The metal used in the hardware isn't the best quality and the slotted head on one of the intonation screws started stripping the first time I touched it.

The worst part was the nut though. It was cut far too high, making the guitar hard to play and the intonation also suffered from it. It was practically unplayable out of the box. After filing it down a bit the guitar got about 100 times better. It's a shame that such a minor detail ruins the first impression of an otherwise decent guitar.

The rest was for the most part ok. Decent craftsmanship for a cheap mass manufactured instrument. The finish was flawless, although whoever mixed the paint can't possibly ever have seen a true TV Yellow guitar. This one is considerably darker and more like mustard. Not a problem for me, I actually like this dark mustard look better. No one will ever mistake this for a vintage nitro finish though. It does have a bit of that "a bit TOO shiny" cheap guitar look. And why do they stain the fingerboard? It kinda looks like an attempt to make it look like fake ebony. It would have been much nicer if it actually looked like wood. It's supposed to be amaranth (which is a reasonably nice looking wood) but it looks more like black plastic.

The neck/fretwork was surprisingly good but the frets they've used are VERY high which I'm personally not a huge fan of. The profile/radius didn't feel quite right to me either. For some reason the neck felt wider and bulkier than it really is. But I guess this may be down to personal taste. To be fair I tend to prefer guitars with a lower radius fretboard than this one.

The pickup sounds quite good but is picks up a LOT of noise. To be fair this applies to all P90s which is why P90 equipped guitars need excellent shielding. I haven't looked inside the guitar yet but I'm guessing there is precisely zero shielding inside (or at least very inadequate). That will have to be sorted out for this guitar to be usable for anything other than home practice.

With only one bridge pickup this will never be the most versatile guitar but can still be a lot of fun. The Harley Benton "SG"-models are probably better value but the DC Junior does have a sort of quirky charm and a couple of interesting colors to choose from.

If the nut had been cut correctly I would have given the DC Junior a better rating considering the price but sadly it wasn't really playable out of the box. I guess stuff like this must be expected on an ultra cheap mass manufactured instrument with limited quality control. If you have the skills to fix things like this yourself you can get a fun little guitar for very little money. If not I would probably stay away, or at least factor in the cost of a proper setup by a luthier (or an experienced guitar tech). That might end up costing almost as much as the guitar though... Buying cheap isn't always cheaper.