Harley Benton ST-62 VW Vintage Series

OK, its Eu111 (£79) so its not going to be a Fender CS Strat but it IS surprisingly good for the money. Clearly styled around the early 60's Strats, its a good looking instrument. Straight out of the box it presented no cosmetic faults whatsoever. It comes with an 'accessory pack' of truss rod and bridge adusting allen keys, a "throwaway" short, cheap and nasty 1/4" mono jack lead, and the tremolo (vibrato) arm. This model is called "Vintage White" but is really light cream, just as Oly White might become after many years. Its a thick plastic paint coat which hopefully will wear well. So I expected quite a dull body tone acoustically but the Basswood body is quite reasonably resonant. It's fitted with branded Wilkinson 60's style single coil Alnico pickups, standard Strat controls and 5 way switch. Lifting the scratchplate reveals fairly cheap pots and blade switch (what do you expect for Eu111?) but for the moment everything works as it should with little "noise" - and I work right in front of the monitor. The bridge is a mock-60's no-name with pressed steel saddles. As supplied, its hard-tailed - flat to the body - but it's only a few minutes work to loosen the claw and bridge screws sufficiently to give a 2.5 to 3mm float. The 3 springs supplied do allow tuning to return to normal after use. Serious dive-bombing does knock the tuning out however. The worst thing about the bridge, and about the guitar in total is the positively awful zinc trem block. It's small and the internal screw thread for the arm is SO slack that it actually rattles unless it is wound in tight, which defeats the object. Whatever tolerance it has been tapped to is a very poor one. Time to get out the PTFE tape! The scratchplate is a 3 ply 11 screw mock-tortoiseshell one. 3 ply torty on a 62 Strat? Dont think so! The edge finish was very good and I thought it was very pretty. Neck pocket wasnt a 'precision fit' but wasn't at all bad and I've seen worse on 'real' Fenders.
The neck is 22 frets (excellent idea) Canadian Maple (that's Pine to you and me) with a rosewood topping and medium jumbo frets. No skunk stripe so the adjustable truss rod was inserted prior to being capped. Kluson type no name tuners keep tune reasonably well. Two string trees which I may experiment with the removal of to remove friction points. Fret dressing was good, no sharp edges or loose frets etc. The neck is a C profile and 13.75" radius fretboard so quite flat compared to some but very playable. Not hugely struck on the poly varnished neck (prefer satin myself) but it does not get sticky so its a personal thing.
Came with 9's D'Addario's which sounded OK but were like playing elastic so were replaced with Elixir 11's.
Sounds? For Eu111 ((£79) it gives a good account of itself IMO. (Tested through a Vox AC30 twin cab). ALL the pickups are a little 'brighter' than I expected, the Bridge having quite some 'bite' that I had to tone down with amp EQ. Neck pickup is nicely rounded but to my ears didn't quite have the depth on the top 3 strings. Roll off the tone, run a bit, or even a lot, of Overdrive and its an instant Blues guitar. Very impressive for a cheap Axe. Middle is a good general purpose pickup, quite warm and also good when driven into a compressor and OD pedal for some crunch. Bridge is wonderfully twangy at the bottom end but a bit brittle on the top two strings, especially if you're working above 12th fret. I'm sure I will find an amp setting that helps in this regard. Its great for RocknRoll. The in between 'quack' settings can give you Tele type tones or Mark Knopfler too.
Apart from the terrible zinc trem block in the obviously low spec bridge unit, the general and overall quality level, playability and the sounds you can get from this guitar exceeded my expectations. By a LOT!! How Thomann can do it for the money beats me!

After reading the numerous praises and positive reviews on this guitar - I must say I am quite disappointed with what I got.

First off, the guitar gets out of tune after just a few minutes of soloing in the upper positions. The tuners cannot be tightened with a screw or otherwise adjusted, so you"re left at the mercy of their cheapness - and they are just mercilessly lousy...

Second, even after 4th thorough octave - action adjustments of all strings, some frets around the octave simply won't get in tune. You'll get a quite substantially out-of-tune note every time you play them. Funny thing is, frets a few positions above - play well and are in tune whrn played. T.m. the problem is non-fixable on my side.

Third' the hiss going out of the singlecools when the strings are not played is much more intensive than with other strats. I also own a Fender strat USA, with standard (not noiseless) pickups, - and the noise is much, much less prevalent + it gets nearly noiseless in the combined positions , which for some reason does not work with this strat clone

And fourth, the trem bar is totally useless, Even a slightest move with the tremolo- and you can tune the guitar again.

I had to return this guitar. My prrvious Harley Benton from Thomann - a PRS copy - was a much, much better piece...

First off, i have to admit that i ordered this guitar simply because i saw how cheap the price tag was.. And i loved the look of the vintage white colour.

Considering it was inexpensive, i wasn't expecting it to be all that great.

How wrong was I!

This guitar has a lovely maple neck with a pretty smooth rosewood slab board (not a cheaper thin veneer board!).

The neck shape is definitely not a slim or small neck. I'd say it's a medium to large C shape neck. Definitely a thicker and wider neck than my Charvel San Dimas guitars. Comfortable though! It's lacquered and shiny, but doesn't feel sticky.

Fret wire was all solid and level but a little dull looking upon arrival, but honestly.. at this price point i wasn't expecting them to be gleaming and shiny. I was totally fine with giving them a quick scrub using some 00000 grade wire wool, takes 5 mins and it did the job great!

The guitar is nice and lightweight, and it's actually very resonant. Harmonics fly out of this thing. Sustain is very impressive too!

The pickups sound very fat, i'd say they're probably overwound singlecoils. The in between positions (2 + 4) still get that glassy tone that we all know and love.

I can get some very convincing SRV and Hendrix tones using this guitar, but also it'll do the heavier sounds effortlessly. Yngwie and Blackmore tones are easy to cop with this guitar!

Hardware all seems solid, it has vintage Kluson style tuners which hold stable. Bridge seems pretty solid so far too.

Overall, i think this is an excellent guitar. Not just for the price, but generally! I own many other nice guitars from higher end brands, but I'll be using this guitar plenty for sure.

If you're not sure, i say just give it a shot and try one! For the price, it's really a no brainer!