Harley Benton SC-450Plus CB Vintage Series

When I started to look a new guitar Harley Bentons SCs were one to consider.

I did my homework and browsed through pages after pages thinking what would I like and how much would I be willing to invest. At the end I chose this SC-450Plus with a beautiful red and gold finish.

Of course one knows Thomann and its Harley Benton can bring quality products. But buying a guitar that you have never played or even picked up seemed a bit strange. You miss something when there is no store to visit. No few riffs of rock 'n roll store cliches you try on. No making sure that you get your hard-earned moneys worth.

Reading other reviews there's mentioning on occasional bad apples and returns. But then again also something about how super nice people at Thomann are with their customer support and if you happened to be one that got the bad one they would just replace it with something that works.

I made the purchase and waited for a week or something and then it arrived. I have to say I was blown away how good the guitar is. It's absolutely a piece of art. Well crafted with nothing to complain about. The only minor eyesore I was able to find was two little sores at the nobs. Otherwise craft-wise just perfect.

The only complain I would have about the quality is that there's quite a lot of hum from the humbuckers. But this isn't a deal breaker. Just something that I may have to checkout more and adjust.

The guitar sound so great. Beautiful, strong, beefy, dark sound that absolutely rocks. It's a heavy beast that instantly made me a friend for life. In closing never could I have dreamed how great guitar I could get so cheap.

Ordered this guitar more than a week ago on a Monday and it arrived a week later on a Monday. Not bad for an international shipment.

As with all Thomann products the packaging is extremely great. The guitar was wrapped in some soft wrapping which was in a box that was in another bigger box filled with giant bubble wrap. This packaging could survive a blast from a tank!

The guitar has some minor flaws which are probably expected for this price but nothing serious.

The finish is excellent. But the product pictures shown aren't very accurate. It's much lighter in color than in pictures. The red isn't as deep as shown and the brownish middle is actually quite yellow, almost like a lemon drop.
Despite that it looks great (maybe even better in my opinion)

The neck is extremely comfortable to play.
The rounded joint where the neck meets the body makes playing high notes very, very, very comfortable.
The binding is a bit rounded so there aren't any edges that you can feel.
No fret buzz, although the frets could use a bit of additional sanding since not all of them are smooth.

The tuners are very smooth and hold the tuning very well.

The nut is plastic. Actually the nut probably is the worst part of the guitar. It's ok but the grooves for the strings are made a bit sloppily..

The description doesn't say this but this guitar comes with coil splitting push-pull pots. Awesome!
Tip: dont try to forcefully remove the knobs. I wanted to remove them to get rid of the stickers more easily that were underneath and I broke my bridge volume pot... 10 minutes after opening the box...
Seriously those knobs are very hard to remove, be careful!

Every plastic part on the guitar (knobs, cavity plates) feels very cheapish, especially the pick guard.

Finally the pickups. These Wilkinson pickups are quite decent. They actually sound good. I like them.

Cons:
Not fully polished/sanded frets
Cheap plastics
Knobs!
Inlay on the headstock isn't symmetrically aligned (but who cares)

Pros:
Easy access to high frets
Coil splitting
Looks fantastic

Final words:
It plays, sounds and feels like a Les Paul. No need to say anything else.

The fret ends, binding, and fingerboard are all top quality and this is very unusual for a guitar in this price range and even double the price. The fingerboard wood is quite dark for Pau Ferro wood and looks better than most rosewood these days. The frets are a little bit scratchy to start with, but they polish up quickly by playing the guitar and bending the strings a lot. The nut slots are cut perfectly, again this is something normally only seen on much more expensive guitars. The cherry to yellow sunburst body finish is really well done and the cream binding on the top edge of the body has been finished very well. Although the maple veneer on the face of the guitar body does not have a really deep flame figuring it is just enough to make the guitar look very expensive. The hardware (tuning pegs, bridge and tailpiece) all seem to be quite good quality, and the pickups are very good for a guitar of this price with the added feature of being able to switch them to single coil mode by pulling up on the volume knobs. The only thing that has caused any issue is that the pickup toggle switch was poor quality. The hex nut hadn't been tightened and the switch rotated in the hole but, when I gently tightened the nut, the threaded cylindrical section broke off from the remainder of the switch. I have bought a replacement switch of better quality and will solder it in place because I have experience with electronics, whereas most other people would have returned the guitar. Overall I am very happy with my purchase.