Harley Benton SC-450PlusLH HB Vintage Series

I've always fancied a Les Paul but being a lefty my options were generally too expensive for me. After seeing (mainly) good reviews on HB guitars online I decided to take the plunge. I wasn't too thrilled to see that the colour options for left handlers was limited (I wanted Black or Tobacco Sunburst) but not put off enough to want to pay an extra £200 to get the colour I wanted from another brand. I was anxious as to whether I'd get a good one or one that needed a little bit of work which would have to be paid for. However, the guitar is better than I expected. I checked it over for flaws on arrival, the only thing I could really spot was a slightly darker area in the mahogany on the upper edge probably caused by the edge of a knot in the wood. You may not get this on a higher priced guitar but it doesn't bother me anyway. The guitar arrived well set up and only needed minor tweaks before playing. The stop bar was set right down close to the body, which is a common mistake with this type of guitar (of any make), it puts too much pressure down onto the bridge and increases string tension, easy to adjust with a 50p coin. It sound great, plays really well and I'm even getting used to the colour. An added bonus are the coil taps for the pickups, brilliant! The tone controls have a nice progression, rather than the on/off you sometimes get. The string height is pretty good, certainly not high, but I'd like to try it lower. On any guitar this might mean getting the frets levelled but I'm willing to get this done as I like the guitar so much. There was some slightly scratchy frets but this and the fingerboard are polishing out through use, it wasn't bad enough to warrant polishing although I might do that anyway. The only negative is that the control cavity wasn't cut quite deep enough which means that the lower tone and volume controls sit too close to the body. This is mainly a problem when using the coil tap on the bridge pickup and you have to hook a nail underneath the knob. They tried to mitigate this at the factory by not fitting a washer to the tone potentiometer. Longer shaft pots would be an easy fix, but the switched volume might not be that cheap. I'm willing to do these small jobs as overall the guitar is far, far better than you should expect for the money and basically it's a keeper. My other option was a Vintage V100 as I'm very impressed with the Strat copy I have from that make and I tried one out in the shop and liked it, but it was a bit out of my budget, however, the HB does not give much away in terms of playability and sound. Obviously the hardware might not be as good or long lasting so stuff like tuners might need replacing sooner, but they all work absolutely fine at the moment. I don't think it's unreasonable to allow for or expect these minor upgrades on such a low priced instrument and the rest of what your getting is way beyond expectations. This is a low priced instrument as apposed to "cheap", there's nothing cheap about how it plays, sounds or feels. Whether it sounds exactly like a £1400 Les Paul I don't know, but it would be unreasonable to expect this, what it does sound like is a very nice double humbucker guitar. I was expecting it to be heavier than it is from general comments you see about Les Paul's and although this is heavier than my other guitars it's not by that much and its definitely not overly heavy for the size and style. BTW: I'm not a gigging or professional musician but I have played a while (decades) and have had a number of guitars go through my hands so my comments are based on this experience. I made up my mind to try an HB after coming across John Robson's blog while looking for guitar lessons and then following up with his reviews on you tube. John gives a good unbiased account from a professional perspective and has experience of high end guitars. Cheers John!

I must admit I was a little worried about ordering such a low budget guitar and based on the reviews I have read, I didn't really know what to expect. Given the price range, I only wished for a playable instrument and expected cheap parts and poorly made guitar.  

And I must say I am pleasantly surprised.

The guitar arrived fast and undamaged and after a quick inspection I couldn't find anything wrong with it. It has a two piece mahogany body and a mahogany neck with a scarf joint.
The finish is faultless and veneered maple top is very nice looking. Hardware and tuners are obviously cheap but they do their job very well. The guitar has good sustain and stays in tune just fine. Nut is precisely cut maybe just a little high over the first fret. I personally don't like the new shape, I would much rather have the old (LP) one, but I like the new cutaway with access to upper part of the fretboard.

The guitar was inspected by Thomann team before shipping and it arrived well adjusted and ready to play. Action was set a little high but still playable, without any fret buzz. Frets are not sharp at the edges and are levelled just fine, but they need some fine polishing in my opinion. I didn't find anything wrong with electronics either. Pick-ups seems good for the price and pots, knobs and switch are working flawlessly.

If I compare it with other MIC and MIK guitars I own, and it's not any worse in fact, being playable straight out the box makes it almost better (they came with number of issues they that had to be addressed before they were playable, like changing cheap, untunable strings, scratchy pots, uneven frets, screws that needed to be fastened, etc). This one looks and feels solid, and sounds even better than most of them and they cost more than twice the price.

I am really pleased with Thomann and their service and I hope they will continue with their good work. If you get such a good guitar at this price, it is a keeper and can also be further improved or moded later if you choose to do so.

I am constantly astounded by the quality/price ratio of all the Harley Benton guitars I have bought from Thomann over the last couple of years, but the SC-450PlusLH is in another league. Certainly as good as the best of the Epi's and approaching LP Standard with regards to build quality. Delivery was less than 4 working days to the UK, and the guitar itself was virtually fault free. Intonation, fretwork and action all spot-on. If I am to be super critical, it would only be that the installed strings were slightly tarnished for some reason - no biggie as I always restring all my guitars as soon as I get 'em.
The build quality as already mentioned, was excellent, and to tone variation was far more than expected, ranging from very usable rhythm to searing attack for solo work and much else in between. Superb.

After placing the order to New York State it took 14 days to arrive including one holiday with no mail. Box was not damaged in any way. All items were packed very well. The SC450 Plus was absolutely beautiful. There were a couple of slight imperfections but nothing to think twice about. The tuning knobs were a little nicked up That was my biggest issue. That being said remember its a $150.00 guitar. It looks and plays like it should cost 3 times more than it did. Out of the box it was almost in tune. Set up was just fine I had to do nothing but tune it. String height was fine intonation was spot on and it stays in tune. It more than fulfilled my expectations..

As my first Les Paul-style guitar, I must say this is a winner. Only one fret is a bit rough, the pickup selector is a bit fragile and I'm always worried it might break during transport in a gig bag (I have taped the piece of styrofoam that came in the box all over so it wouldn't disintegrate and keep it in the bag to protect this piece during transport), also the numbers on the knobs seem to be backwards - could it be because it's a left-handed guitar and the factory didn't think of this?

Other than that, everything is great. Good intonation from factory, playable out of the box, I changed the strings to some better ones and it shines. Great fot jazz, rock n roll, blues, funk and that ragged Les Paul sound. I like the pickups though would probably upgrade them if I were to perform regularly with it.