Harley Benton SC-DLX Gotoh Black

I ordered 2 of these one for me and one for my brother. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the of instrument that Thomann is making.

The way I rate this:
Looks: 4/5 (my brother had visible gaps around his fretboard inlays) also the Brand name is not inlayed into the head stock instead a metallic sticker is clear coated in place.

Play-Ability: 5/5 the Gotah hardware along with a decent out of box setup really does this wonders. Minimal to no rattle on the frets but that varied between the 2 guitars.

Sound: 5/5 These are both sustain monsters, that also has to do with having a decent setup. The Telsa pickups (non-active) have tonal qualities similar to hot Dimarzio's and almost can hold their own against EMG 81/85's, I will not be changing out the Tesla's they sound great and fit the bill for Metal and hard rock.

Overall: 4/5
Things that would need to change my score to a 5/5:
Fret inlays are fully sealed and no gaps are left.
Headstock has Harley Benton inlayed just like on the custom shop series and even better if the custom shop series split diamond was inlayed instead of it being bare.
The fretboard inlays were available in block style.
Last and most important if the body and neck were both mahogany on the DLX models. After removing the covers for the electronics cavities 2 screws stripped out of the wood, I believe this to by due to the nyotah wood used for the body.

I bought this guitar as my second ever single-cut. I have an 8-string single-cut but it's difficult to make a comparison based on that. Personally, I felt this guitar met my most important quality which is "ergonomics." Essentially, if the guitar doesn't feel good, I'm not going to want to play it. The neck and fretboard feel great and the body isn't too heavy. The sound is decent but there's plenty of room to put pickups of your choice in there. Even without after-market pickups, the guitar still does great with distortion and clean tones. Overall, for the specs, this guitar is difficult to beat and I will be buying more from Harley Benton going forward.

I did not expect that my second electric guitar can be so much better than my first Squier Bullet Stratocaster HT HSS BL which cost just usd 50 less in Russia. Now i know what it is not to have that noise with even expensive Cordial cable. For me as a beginner this guitar sounds wonderful, look wonderful, and built good. The only small drawback is that the controls and the selector switch are not all tight enough. But its just nothing serious and i can be easily adapted if you are a perfectionist. I truly recommend it this guitar and of course, as a rookie, i also can recommend it to my fellow-newcomers.

You can tell the difference with the gotoh hardware immediately when you play this guitar. Tuning is smooth and precise. The weight reduction and the belly cut make the guitar much more comfortable. The coil split function gives you some extra tonal variety, which is welcome. I have another single cut that is 4x the price, and this guitar gets reached for just as often.

I would have liked to see some of the same color options as we have in the SC-550II, and an option for standard colored hardware.