Harley Benton CST-24T Paradise Flame

Over the last 30 years I got my hands on a lot of instruments and this one sits right up there with the best. Maybe I got lucky and draw the long straw, but this guitar is really nice overall. I set up my instruments the way I like, right out of the box so I cannot comment on the factory setup, but I can say that it wasn't far off(also, this comes down to preference). I also changed the strings during setup, to my regulars, so I also don't care about the factory strings, but I think they are generic 10-46 D'Addarios. The tuners are on par with the ones fitted on more expensive guitars (think 2700 Euro LesPaul) so pretty good for non-locking tuners. The fretboard radius is perfect for my hands (~14") and the overall feel of the neck is indicative of a much more expensive guitar. The paint job is amazing and the heel is more comfortable than the original PRS one. Bridge is also really good and can be floated. Pickups are great and this is something i did not expect 'cause this is where most "production line" type builders cut corners. In terms of sound, this is a really versatile guitar because of the pickup split thingy, you can get glassy strat tones and even telecaster like tones, but when you push the knob you get into humbucker territory and this is where this pickups really shine.
So if you want a great guitar and don't care about the name on the headstock, go for it! On the other hand, if you want a guitar that will retain it's value on a resale situation or you do care about the name on the headstock, than go for something else. I just wish this was available 30 years ago.

I normally wouldn't buy a guitar online without trying it first, but I couldn't resist this.. Been looking towards PRS guitars for the past year, and honestly can't afford one so this is my best shot at something near 'PRS like'. On a budget... Amazing but it comes with some flaws...

Right out of the box, the finish is astonishing. The guitar was well packed, for not having a case or gigbag, which is totally normal for this price point. The amount of clear coats on this thing is insane. Great binding and overall finish, vivid colours on the burst. Over actually really amazing.

Plays great out of the box. Only did some minor tweaking on the truss rod and bridge height to personal taste. Ok fretwork for the price and the neck plays great. It's a bit sticky because of the glossy finish, that's totally sandable.

The best part is the sound.. I'm surprised by the stock pickups (Roswell) and I was very eager to try out coil splitting for the first time. They came installed very low, almost under the pickup plates. Measured at around 8k, these pickups, along with the push pull coil splitting will bring you anywhere between crystal clean fender cleans and some heavier gibson humbucker tones.

Now comes the weird part.. The Wilkinson floating bridge. The trem arm came uninstalled (great), and it just wouldn't fit in the bridge. I'm aware of the Wilkinson mini hex screw that is installed on the back of the bridge to adjust the grip on the trem arm. It wasn't closed. It was the hole in the metal plate on top. I finally had to drill it half a millimeter wider. The whammy bar is hard to use, unlike my Stratocaster floating bridge which is basically the same system with springs. It stays better in tune though than on a Fender.

The electronics seem to have been poorly soldered, but overall clean. Luckily it's a case of too little solder, not like a total mess where the pots are all covered with too much solder.

The three way switch failed after a couple of days, there was bad contact with the bridge pickup. Resoldered but will replace it soon with something better as it doesn't seem to be of overall good quality.

Overall total bang for your buck!! You get a beautifully finished guitar with a great array of sounds. To me it's an everyday guitar and I bet it'll stay like that in the future!

I recently purchased a CST24T Harley Benton. I was extremely pleased with it except for a few minor things. I really don't like the telecaster knobs on this guitar - they are too tall to look good on an arch top. This cheapens the appearance of a good guitar - they should be using "speed knobs" and mine have already been changed (amber looks best!) The guitar I received did not have the Indian Rosewood fingerboard specified, but a smooth ebonol (man-made ebony substitute) fingerboard. As I actually prefer ebony fingerboards to most rosewood, I was prepared to accept this change to the advertized material. The frets were not perfect and needed some work to seat, level and polish them, but I guess this is to be expected at the price. There was one small wiring issue which meant I had to postpone the guitar's first gig - the earth wire from the tremolo claw had not been threaded through the tunnel from the trem cavity or connected to the electrics, which caused the inevitable loud buzz through my high gain Laney amp. After I took the guitar home and finished the factory's soldering work for them, I took the CST24T on another gig and it performed excellently all night (two and a half hours gig, non-stop, all on the new guitar.) My back-up instrument - a PRS SE EG with EMG pickups - stayed in its case all night! I doubt anyone will believe this, but it actually happened - a guitarist in the audience came up to me afterwards and said "those (big name American guitar company) guitars are really costly, but they're worth every penny, aren't they?" He honestly thought I had been playing a "real" USA-built guitar. I am now extremely pleased with the guitar and I have ordered the hollow-body version. I have owned many guitars with this appearance, some made in the USA, some by the USA company's Korean production and some made in Asia and marketed by a well-known wholesaler in the UK. This, in my opinion, has more of the flavour and quality feel of the USA guitars than do any of the others. The important things - the finish, the Wilkinson pickups, the operation of the volume and tone controls, the lovely smooth Wilkinson trem and (after the frets were smoothed and levelled) the action of my guitar are all excellent - no upgrades urgently needed. Very playable and so nice to look at I am still taking it out of it's case just to take another look. Owner satisfaction is so high it's easy to ignore how little I paid for it - there is an old saying (usually to justify paying a stupidly high price) "quality is remembered long after price is forgotten". With this guitar, that saying is still correct. One small suggestion (although the electrics are surprisingly versatile as the tone and volume actually WORK on this guitar) - if they used the four-wire Wilkinson humbuckers and a push-pull tone control for split-coil sounds it wouldn't cost much more to produce and would bring it even closer to the performance expected from this type of guitar. Surely this could be done and still keep the guitar incredibly affordable. Verdict - I'm very pleased. Thanks Thomann.