Harley Benton DC-DLX Gotoh Pelham Blue

Have never tried Bentons before. On a bipolar impulse bought 3 different models

TE-62CC
DC-DLX Gotoh
SC-Custom Plus EMG FR

I have no words to describe.. I stay in Malaysia.. Had requested someone from the team to sign said guitars.

The guitars are made in Indonesia.. But were sent from Germany.. They came all signed as requested.. The tele and sg came IN TUNE!! (can you imagine that?) they were setup to perfection.. The floyd I preferred a little lower action (but that's just personal taste)

Finish were all tasteful.. No feet buzz.. I mean seriously.. How do you guys do it?

I own about 20 guitars in total..from fenders to gibsons to ibanez to Tokai and of a few corts.. Some of which are 3 times the price of the most expensive Benton I bought..

I'll go as far to say that the only thing you may need to change (in the future) are the pick ups (you need to do that with all guitars anyway) ..

Everything else is solid as an ox. The Bentons are as good.. And in some cases even better then the guitars they are trying to (copy sounds like a bad word.. Maybe the guitars that were inspired by).

I think anyone who is thinking of buying a cort or squire or epiphone or whatever brand that's sub of the original American counterpart should try a benton.. Trust me.. They will shock you.

Don't even get me started on the price.. Like seriously man.. How do you guys do it.

Nothing else to add.. Continue with the great job, production and admin team. You guys rock!

Maybe I am just unlucky but my recent guitar purchasing with Thomann has been less than uplifting. I purchased this guitar but when it arrived the nut was cut way too high, the frets were poor and it was impossible to get a decent action without buzz. It arrived with a ridiculously high action too. I am experienced at setting up guitars, including fret dresses, and despite my best efforts I could not get it to play well. I was not prepared to try and cut the nut correctly as I do not have specific nut files (that is one job I don’t do). I then had a protracted correspondence about getting a replacement and ultimately purchased another of the same model, plus an acoustic guitar. Thankfully the second guitar was better, and despite poor frets I decided to keep it as the one strength of this model is how incredibly gorgeous looking it is. The acoustic was awful btw, and that was returned with the first of this model. And a final comment on the design - what genius decided to put the front strap button behind the upper horn??? Never have I had a guitar that neck dived so much, indeed it was unplayable standing up for any length of time because of the fatigue it caused trying to support the neck! Anyone who is familiar with SG style guitars will know that positioning the neck button there would cause this problem. So I have fitted another button on the neck heel and hey presto, no neck dive! Heaven knows why the original designer thought putting the button on the horn was a good idea???

I think this is a great guitar for the money. The binding looks nice, the finish is nearly flawless, the tuners are very responsive with no backlash and the pickups sound nice. It seems to be staying in tune, too. There are no sharp fret ends that cut your hand. Shipping to the US was very fast and very reasonable. Overall, I am very pleased by this purchase. But there are a few issues I want to point out.

First, the action is a bit high for my taste. This normally would not be an issue at all, except that the bridge on the treble side is already at the bottom. That means I cannot lower the action without re-cutting the nut, or installing a new one. Fortunately, only two slots needed to be re-cut.

The fretboard looks like it is painted or dyed. But not very well. There are pores (as is normal in rosewood) where some sort of white paste is embedded. If I could post a picture, I would. While it is not noticeable at a distance, once you see it, it is hard to un-see. It was easy to clean out, though.

Overall, I think this a very well-built guitar and offers tremendous value for the money.

After a fret polish and intonation set up this guitar is amazing . The pickups sound great and prefer them to my SD slash set in my 92 Gibson LP, I find when split they dont lose a lot of volume as most other splittable pickups do. When sitting I find you dont have to stretch as far as with Gibson SG's as the lower contour is closer to the neck , this makes a difference if your switching from a Les Paul . If I payed €1000 for this guitar I would be happy with it. I have a lot of high end guitars and this is as good as any of them , I am so impressed by this guitar.