Harley Benton JA-60CC Inca Silver

This was my second HB, first one being a TE-62CC SFG. That guitar was fantastic and as has been said in many reviews the necks on all Harleys are tremendous. The TE neck was great. This neck is not great like the TE ... it's even better. Smooth, no sprout or dodgy fret edges at all, lovely thickness, silky feel, perfect binding and nice, neat inlays. The neck and weight are important to me (aside from liking the look enough to want to pick a guitar up in the first place). Pickups are obviously vital but these can be easily upgraded in any guitar. My particular JA is very light which is great and I find their take on the Jazzmaster shape really comfortable having never owned one before.

There was only one flaw on the entire guitar and that was a small dint a third of the way down the back where the belly cut stops. It will never be seen and was clearly there before the paintwork and clearcoat were applied so won't get worse. Personally, I don't side with the logic that as these are so well-priced these things are ok. To me, that flaw must have been missed or deliberately ignored at multiple inspection phases (if such things even exist) and makes a mockery of the multiple ticked QC cards in the packaging. That said, everything else is perfect and it plays really nicely so it was never going to be returned for that.

Personally, I'm not overly keen on the pickups. They are fine, absolutely nothing wrong with them but to me they just lack any sort of personality. I've seen some YouTubers get good improvements by putting in 1 Meg pots so might try that as that's a dirt-cheap tweak. You obviousIy get some of the usual characteristics that lower priced guitars have in the pots and switches but that's the same everywhere e.g. knobs do nothing until they get to 3. I saw a review of a Fender Player the other day with exactly this problem and the switch cap fell off mid-review and that guitar was four times more expensive! I also would have preferred the jack to be on the bottom as it's just a pain on the pickguard - one place where authenticity can be ditched as far as I'm concerned.

I remember buying a Washburn Mercury guitar in the 90s which was twice the price even then and was basically junk and made learning hard work. These guitars are mind-blowing for the money. You do not feel you are picking up a cheapo, entry-level guitar because they are not in any way (well, except for the price but you know what I mean). Really makes you think how the big guns have been taking us for a ride all these years. Can Fender really justify 9 tiers of Fender Stratocasters - extra $100 we'll give you locking tuners, another $100 we'll roll the fretboard edges, another $100 we'll give you $20 more expensive pickups. Come on, enough is enough!

I'm slightly surprised it takes a week to get to the UK when I read US customers saying theirs have turned up in 3 days but so be it. It came as a box within a box and both were completely undamaged. International tracking is non-existent. You get the shipped state from Thomann then 7 days non-existent progress until DHL suddenly say we've got it and we'll be round in a jiffy. I never understand why so many couriers provide so little in-progress tracking as they will clearly know what's going on so why can't we.

I wish the bundle prices with gig bags were consistent. This didn't have a bundle, the TE did have one. Sometimes you get the gig bag for almost half price, sometimes they are only 5% cheaper.

I've wandered off the point but to summarise: Fender who? Gibson who? With products this good, it's only a matter of time until mentioning the word Harley makes people think of guitars first instead of motorcycles.

Really great guitar!
It’s the cheapest one I have and it’s perfect on playability: the frets and the neck are as good as some 600+ euros guitars; it’s lighter than a real JM; it has no trem (which I prefer in these kind of models); I’m using it in C standard tuning and have no intonations issues whatsoever.
Only improvements I would like are:
- white/pearl pick guard instead of mint (only noticed the real colour when I got it in my hands); up and down switch should be the standard left to right; would match plastic colours on nut/pickups/switches. But for the price these are not real issues.
I would recommend this to anyone looking for a budget JM’like guitar.