Harley Benton JA-60CC Seafoam Green

Great quality. Believe the hype with the HBs. I liked it so much I bought it in blue as well. It sounded really good out of the box. No issues. Everything was perfect. Neck feels great, etc.

I did these mods, and it is now heavenly. The overall sound was good, but I wanted to get it sounding a bit more JazzMaster-ish.

It came with A250k pots for volume and tone. Replaced with A500k (audio) pots. The volume should have a B500k (linear), but I didn't have one at the time. I also didn't go with a 1M like old Fenders because I didn't want it too sound too ice picky. For treble bleed I added 1000 pF capacitor and 100k Ohm resistor (Kinman). It basically rolls off very similar (not exact) to a linear pot believe it or not. I am fine with it as is. Though I will use a B500k next time for volume. I used a .022uF capacitor for the tone pot.

Added a Duesenberg Trem II.... a must for this guitar. As well as a roller bridge.

Foiled the inside and back of pick guard. 95% of hum is completely gone now. Even in a room with lots of EF from LED lighting.

Oiled the neck, re-stringed and setup. Tuners and nut seem good, so I didn't change them. Going to add a kill switch just for fun, and change the knobs.

Since the mods, I can get nice chime-y tones. With the tone all the way on 10, it is bright to point of maybe a tad too much for some people. Simply roll it to 8 or 9 and it takes the edge off. Rolling the tone down to 5 or 6 gets you back to the stock tone.

The pickups sound great. I would not bother changing them. If you are handy, I would recommend changing the pots at the very least. You won't be disappointed.

Since a long time I wanted a Jazzmaster style guitar, but didn't want to spend 350-500 euros for a Squier Jazzmaster. Harley Benton just released those in great new colors, the seafoam is just divine.
I can't say anything bad about the guitar - it is a quality instrument, don't let the price fool you.
I've read all the reviews I could find and everyone said the same - how great it was set up from the box, no fret issues or anything. And they are right to some degree. Yes, it was set up ok, playable with the action a bit too high for my liking. It was 0.8 inches on the low E, which is normal. I lowered it to 0.5 low E and 0.4 high E. I found there are uneven frets as there is a fret buzzfrom the first fret up to the 13-14 fret especially on the G and the D strings. Now, 0.5 is pretty low action and I did not expected that it will go perfect with just lowering the bridge, so it will need just a little bit of fret leveling to become perfectly playable instrument.
That said - I had to do the same on my 600 eur Hagstrom guitar. A friend had to do it on his 2000 eur Gibson.
The neck feels so smooth - not too thin, but not too thick either and I'm a guy who complaints about bad necks. This one is perfect.
No paint issues, the knobs feel good, the tuners are OK and hold great...All in all - BUY IT, there is no better guitar for twice or thrice the price out there.
Next in line is the Harley Benton SG Deluxe in Pelham blue. Can't wait to buy this beauty!

DISCLAIMER: I am not a native speaker, so I apologize in advance for grammar, punctuation and other issues
It is better to treat my review with humor and irony, because I am a beginner guitarist, who understands nothing about sound and just wants to get a voucher for the review :D
This is my first guitar, I haven't held any other guitars in my hands, but before buying it I familiarized myself with all possible budget guitars on the internet, because I'm a poor student, and misspent $200 is a disaster for me
I was as interested as possible in feeling like every dollar was invested for a reason. There are a lot of high quality budget guitars on the market now, but unfortunately they are all impersonal: you don't want to pick them up, they have no charisma.
When I saw this model, I realized that I didn't want to buy anything else. This is an insanely beautiful and pleasant instrument with a lot of attention to detail. Plus, it's probably the only jazzmaster in this price range that sets you apart from the guys with Stratocasters and Telecasters. When I walk by a guitar, I always look at it and either pick it up or think about picking it up when I have free time. There has never been a second of purchase regret.
The guitar came to me by international shipping in three weeks, it was nice that it came with a cable. Best of luck to everyone in improving your musical skills and may the force be with you!

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

I wasn't satisfied with the sound of my Fender Stratocaster, it was not very powerful, and the bridge pickup wasn't very interesting to me. Too piercing, not enough body. This guitar from Harley Benton was supposed to be an improvement, and it definitely was! The neck is very playable, the balance with the offset body and the neck was perfect for sitting and standing (no neck dive) and the sound is fantastic! The neck pickup is warm and present, and the bridge pickup is powerful while maintaining the single-coil aesthetic. It's got a slightly different tone than the Strat because of the pickup design (Jazzmaster style) and the body shape, but it's also wound significantly hotter (14k ohms resistance) and sounds very present. It also sounds great with distortion. I rated the sound 4 stars instead of 5 because I felt the sound could be a little snappier with a little more treble. I replaced the volume and tone pots with 500K tone pots rather than the 250K that came with it, which gave both pickups a little more bite, but this was a personal taste, and many people would be very happy with the sound of the guitar as it came from the factory.
The build quality on these guitars is similar to that of Epiphones or other guitars in the $500 range. Very well made for the price! Good quality tuners, nice finish, and well-finished neck and frets. Playable, good looking, good sounding, and fun!

I bought this guitar as a cheap guitar for gigging, that I wouldn't have to worry too much about getting stolen.

However, gigging guitars need to be reliable and I just can't get on with the vintage-style tuners.

I play 9s, which seem to be too slinky to grip on the tuner shafts and keep popping out. I've watched all the videos on how to restring and my technique seems correct, but can only get the shafts to grip with many extra turns which then lead to less-than-perfect tuning stability.

Aside from this...
+ guitar looks really great, totally cool.
+ the finish is flawless.
+ balances perfectly, no neck dive.
+ the frets were nicely polished, didn't have to do anything to them. The fret ends were not very rounded but no fret sprout.
+ the frets are low, vintage-style, which I prefer.
+ except the pickup alignment, setup was good out of the box, but I tweaked it anyway.
+ despite having binding, neck is very similar to my Fender mexi strat and Thomann tele which is exactly what I wanted.
+ if you like vintage-style tuners, they're pretty good, precise with very little dead spot, for the price.

- the vol and tone control knobs feel a bit cheap, but hey, they are cheap.
- the tone control doesn't seem to do much until it's really in the low numbers, but because of the warm pickup voicing, I tend to leave it on 10 anyway.
- the pickup alignment was horrible but this is very easy to adjust.
- those tuners.

Neutral
<> the pickups sound very different from the humbuckers and tele/strat single coils that I'm used to. They're relatively warm, which doesn't cut through a gig mix.

I have heard so many reviewers say that qualifier, and I get it - some guitars slip through the cracks with any company. But I don't think anyone is getting lucky with this guitar - it's a sure bet.

Great sound, set up very nicely, barely had to even tune it out of the box after being shipped half way around the world. Details and finish are almost perfect (tiny imperfection by the neck and body joint - tactile cosmetic only).

I've since put some new strings on it and swapped out the 250 pots for 1 meg versions, it's been my favourite guitar to play since I got it.