Harley Benton ST-20 CA Standard Series

To start, a little back story. I've been playing guitar for about 1 year on an acoustic (Yamaha FG800M) and since the beginning, I have been really interested in getting into electric. I was doubting for a while whether I should shell out the extra cash for a Squier Classic Vibe 60s Strat, or if a cheaper alternative was gonna do it. I chose the latter option because I am not huge on cash and was willing to take a gamble quality-wise. I'm saying that because from reviews, the quality has shown to be mixed.

Now as this arrived at my door, I was pleasantly surprised right out of the gate. The guitar simply looks incredible, especially for the price. However, I did notice some problems with the cutting of the pickguard around the hole for the pickup selector switch, but that's just a minor cosmetic issue. The fret ends felt quite nice, none of them were poking out, but a tiny bit on the sharper side, that's an easy fix though. Also, I noticed that the action was a little bit high for my liking (kind of an SRV style action), but thanks to the included tools that was a really easy fix. The intonation was practically dead on, I only had to do a couple of small adjustments. And the truss rod was a little bit too tight, meaning that the neck didn't have enough relief in it, but again, a really easy thing to fix with the included tools.

I will say though that the tremolo system outright sucks, so if you're someone who uses a trem or would like to use one, this is not the guitar for you. It gets out of tune really fast, even with a lubed nut, and the springs on the back are really overtightened to the point that it's hard to loosen them with an ordinary screwdriver. Also speaking of the springs, the screws for the spring claw were screwed in at a really weird angle and I could not figure out what could've gone wrong there. With that all said though, I don't really care about the tremolo system, so for me, that doesn't knock down anything really.

Going to the sound, I found the low-end response to be a bit weird, it got really muddy really fast. That could be fixed though by lowering the side closer to you of the pickups, and when I did that, the guitar started sounding much better already. The pickups sound a bit weird and I can't put my finger on what specifically throws me off about these, but being a 4th position lover, this strat's 4th position doesn't sound like the 4th position I'm used to. Same with the 2nd position too, the in-betweens seem a bit weird. But for the price, I'm pretty sure these are not better than what Squier is putting in their Affinity series, so for 88€ at the time of writing, this thing sounds killer!

All in all, even though I'm knocking a star for each of the subcategories, I've chosen to give this guitar a 5-star overall rating, because for such a low price it can not be beaten. For guys just starting out, I highly recommend it, just beware that the quality on yours might not be as good as it was on mine.

Edit: I'm now into the 6th month of owning this guitar, and some additional issues have cropped up. For one, the switch tip is extremely loose and comes off extremely easily. I was thinking of gluing it on, but since I'm also considering replacing the pickguard on this guy with a pearloid one, this isn't an option. Also as the humidity has decreased significantly due to the winter, the guitar now shows pretty significant fret sprouting. This isn't strictly a Harley Benton issue, as this is the case with most guitars, especially budget ones. Aside from those flaws though, I'm really darn impressed and have gigged around with this guitar with nothing but compliments on its look and sound!

Been lucky to play original USA Fender Strat, several Gibson SG, and numerous Epiphones before this guitar. So will try to describe my perception of new to me brand name on example of this guitar.
Pluses of this Harley Benton ST-20 CA Standard Series guitar:
- it looks very bright and beautiful - much more attractive to my taste, than most of begginers level guitars by other manufacturers.
- head, neck, fretboard, deck - are good.

Minuses I've found:
- out of the box completely untuned and no chance any single of 6 strings will give you an octave at 12 fret;
- electronics with tone pot at maximum working like radio receiver - you can hear local radiostation weather report trough your guitar cabinet (funny fact - Harley Benton SC-450 P90 GT Classic Series tuned at the same station. So may be it's just patented, but undocumented, feature from manufacturer?).
- frets ends will bite your hand serious after few minutes of playing. Needed to be shortened for about 1-1,5 mm from both sides of the fretboard and polished after that.

Sound is good.

So my sincere recomendations to manufacturer - keep your instruments looking that good, but improove electronics and finishing of your products a bit. If you'll made this, I'll change rating to 5 stars for sure.

the guitar is simply stunning in the CA finish. After a quick tuning out of the box intonation was spot on, but I will probably lower the string height a bit. Guitar is quite a bit heavier(good thing) than I anticipated. For the price the pick ups sound very good through a tube amp. Could it use an upgrade on the tuners and a bigger trem block, hell yes.....but for the price you can afford to upgrade it and have an incredible guitar for under $200. I honestly don't believe one can find a better guitar for the money.