Harley Benton ST-Junior BK Standard Series

I bought the guitar for my son - now, he's only 3 years old and the guitar is way too big for him, but he's been twisting the knobs on my guitars... Dads, you know the story :)

First impression - it's a Fender just smaller. But I could not stop grinning, the guitar looks business even at that size.

I'll do the good, the bad and the ugly in reverse, that way, my 4-star rating will make more sense.

The ugly - frets. At some points, they protrude both ways and they hurt at some... frets. Yes, I know it's a 59 euro guitar. However, it's called 'Junior', so the target users are children and it could really hurth their hands. If the actual fretjob is actually really good, the sides could use equal attention. This is the only reason for 2 star deduction.

The bad - the thickness of the neck. The short scale targets small hands but the neck is thicker than the one on my Ibanez RGA7. The fenderesque head demands such thickness but again - it kinda defies the purpose of a 'Junior' guitar.

The good - sound. Long story short, I played guitars that cost 10x more and don't sound that good. Played thru a Ronald Cube, the sound is BIG and even. It's neither thin, nor muddled, there's no excesssive hum.... Another fascinating thing is a single piece neck ;)

I'll take the guitar to a luthier to file the frets and the nut (strings are too high), perhaps to make the neck a bit thinner. It may cost the same as the guitar but I'd be sure that my son will have a usable instrument when he's bit older.

Out of the box all very well packed in bubblewrap etc. Very nice finish. Intonation was very bad, hopelessly out of tune on 5th fret and sound pretty yuk. Changed the strings to my favourite ones (electric guitar 0.010 top) and hey-presto - as near perfect as I can tell! Lovely bright sound well balanced across all 6 strings with no need to adjust pups height. I lowered the action by one turn per string at bridge/saddle (my personal preference for action) and gave a small tweak on bridge intonation screws - got the octave perfect and string to string at 5th fret, well as near as I can hear. Don't touch the truss rod - looks properly set for fret board bow. I play through a Fender 25 bass amp (10 inch) to get nice sound. Don't expect same through cheap battery amp with 3 inch speaker, I've tried. I'm talking proper clean tones here, much more demanding than distorted. Tuned to A low i.e. same as normal guitar with capo on 5th fret, hence just use normal guitar strings. The 5 position switch works as standard strat with positions 2 and 4 giving some of that fender twang and also hum cancelling, so I assume the middle pup is reverse wound/polarity as it should be. One result of small size is that pups are close together so not so much differentiation of tone /sound as on a full size. Came with free jack lead. Just remember that like any (single coil) guitar the pick up height affects the tone, I prefer my pickups very low for a more mellow tone.

I bought this mainly to play melody lines of English ceilidh and folk music because the range of first finger position from low A to high C# matches most of all published music books in that genre. Hence wanting clean sound. I love it, it's great fun and nicely satisfying for melody lines. Chords sound fine as well to me, but being short scale you have to set your tuning accurately with a proper tuner. And for the price its amazing, and fine for me, then again - I'm not a pro. I don't see this as just a child's instrument. My star ratings apply after string change.

I brought this as a presnet for my daughter and for the money I really wasn't expecting much. But I build guitars and do set-ups so all I really needed was a base for future improvements

On openign the vbox i was pleasantly surprised. The guitar arrived and was playable out of the box. It tuned up nicely and starting holding its tunign well after a good stretching of the strings. the action was about 2.5mm at the 12th fret and was playing buzz free. I lowered this to 2mm and it was still buzz free. I have played a lot of expensive guitars which can't say the same!!!

It weighed 5lb 2oz which is still a little heavy for my daughter, but she is only 3 and already enjoys having this on her lap and strumming it whilst I play my full size guitars. tbh I will be playing it myself sometimes as its perfectly acecptable as a real instrument

When i plugged this one in the bridge pickup was noticeably lower volume. they are all set to the same height which may be contributing to this but when I checked DC resistance the real reason became clear. bridge is 4.3k, middle is 5.2, neck is 4.7. they could be evened out in volume with height adjustment but they do work as they are and are relatively inoffensive. ( usually pay 3-5 times the price of this guitar for a single pickup!! I am a pickup snob)

The edges of the fretboard of the fretboard rolled and feels comfy as a result. the maple is also flatsawn as it should be and is covered in a really thin lacquer - actually much nicer than a heavy gloss finish. it feels sleek. It seems to have had dye on the rosewood board. firstly the dots are very dark, secondly there is a noticeable colour difference between the bare rosewood and lacquered side. but it is real rosewood and even the big name manufacturers use dye on a fretboard occasionally - I was more surprised they had bothered on such a cheap guitar

Obviously I am a tinkerer and have taken the guitar apart. Everything was as it should be. It has a large swimming pool route under the guard which will fit most types of pickups. It is clear from the neck pocket that the solid wood body is more of a blockboard style with strips of wood topped with a cap. I am fine with this for a cheap guitar. Its a style of construction used on much more expensive things such as mexican fenders. It is preferable to the heavy ply some min guitars are made from

So a bit ago, I needed a guitar for traveling around. Nothing special, nothing very good and nothing better than my real guitars. Just a small version to jam and to play when not being able to take my normal guitars with me.

There are several small guitars on the market and there are also "traveling" guitars. Really exciting :-)

But I chose this one. Because:
It's very cheap! So should happen anything to this guitar, it is not neccessary! :-)

The amplified sound is not very very good, but it's also not that bad! It's ok! Better than I had expected :-)

For children or somebody with really small hands it could really be the first guitar!

For my traveling issues - it's perfect.

Quality is also just 'ok' - but hey, it's cheap! And for the price well worth!!

Cool guitar :-)