Harley Benton SC-550 II Silver Burst

Was sceptical as the last HB I bought was a disaster, but a silver burst Les Paul for less than £300 made me take a punt... Glad I did.

The guitar looks and sounds awesome, did need a slight truss rod adjustment to get the action where I wanted it but that's allowable at this price. I will say though it did need the adjustment, the action was uncomfortably high before it. Also the 10's it ships with seem a bit light for this guitar, that's personal preference though.

It's also heavy, which I like, was a bit put off by the chambering to get the weight down but it still feels substantial so no worries there.

The hardware seems fine, the plastic on the tuners does feel a bit cheap, but I'm comparing it to a Gibson so possibly not a fair comparison, for the price they're fine. Did have a weird click on my A string tuner but it went after a few turns. Switches and pots are all fine. The pickups are quite nice to be fair, they're not mentally high output, at this price point they do the job although I'll probably swap them out for something more articulate at some point. I do have to say this guitar sounds better with the tone rolled off, especially on the bridge pickup... Also there's not a massive difference in sound between the neck and bridge with the tone up, which makes me think swapping the pickups out would be a massive improvement.

Frets feel really nice, the nut is a bit too small, but I haven't noticed it while playing so that's not a big problem. The only big problem I have is that the fret board on mine was extremely dry, it was noticeable while playing. I'm going to keep the guitar and oil it, possibly even sand it down a bit, but if the rest of the guitar hadn't been so good I'd have sent it back.

In conclusion at £240 this is a lot of guitar, out of the box it did need some work, so I'd struggle to recommend it as a first guitar, but if you're prepared to do a little bit of work on the set up and maybe spend another £100-£150 on better tuners and pickups you'll end up with something that punches well above its weight

I ordered this guitar this winter, when it was back-ordered by something like 10-12 weeks. Owning a couple of the 550-ii model guitars, I expected good things, and a distinctly beautiful piece, to boot. Unfortunately, the extended wait forced me to increase my collection with a couple additional Harley Bentons. Such is fate. :)

The guitar arrived a couple weeks prior to the initial prediction. Nicely boxed, and with zero damage. Fit and finish of the guitar body and paint job are superb. No observable defects. The neck is straight, smooth and fast. Sound is excellent, and on par with my other 550-ii's; nothing new to report here.

Only real nit-picks are that several of the fretboard inlays are cut slightly undersized for the corresponding cut-outs, and the inlays are set slightly off-centre within the cutouts. Nothing affecting sound or durability; just not as superb in appearance as on my other 550's. Also, nobody I know can understand the use the cheap, non-locking, green-knobbed tuners. They work just fine, but look completely out of place on this particular guitar. I could overlook this choice if the tuners were easily replaceable; however the mounting screw location on these traditional, Kluson-pattern tuners makes finding a quality replacement a bit of an expensive proposition.

Overall, an excellent guitar for the money, no doubt! Now, if HB would just choose the same locking tuners as equipped on the SC-II or older, 550+ models, they'd have completely nailed it!