Harley Benton ST-20HSS SBK Standard Series

550 Customer ratings

4.6 / 5

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353 Reviews

Harley Benton ST-20HSS SBK Standard Series
369 AED 93,28 €
Plus 277 AED shipping
The price in AED is a guideline price only
Since we ship from Germany, additional costs through taxes and customs may be incurred
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P
Very nice guitar for the money
Plectrum 02.04.2020
Ordered in early Jan, and was told to wait 7-8 weeks.
It arrived couple weeks ago, and here are my initial observations...

PROS
1. Looks even better than in the pictures. The red tortoise pick-guard really nice against the matte black body- which had no finish flaws.
2. Neck is fairly straight, and the fretwork is good - level with no sharp edges although I did polish them.
3. Stays in tune well, but I imediately replaced the basic tuners with Harley Benton brand locking tuners (black). Nut and bridge seem fine.
4. The pickups are pretty good, and all 5 positions are usable from clean to dirty tones & various points in between.
Note: Bridge pickup is quite hot, so some amp/pedal tweaking might be necessary to get the sound you're after (especially since it's not wired to the tone control - per usual Strat-style configuration).
5. Electronics are fine for what they are, and do the job without fuss. This can be considered another upgrade point in the future.

CONS
1. The strings are a bit heavy and flat feeling- personal taste thing.
2. Rough edges on the pickguard around the selector switch cutout. A quick 2-3 mins with a small file should do the trick if it bugs you.
3. Screw-in vibrato arm is either too loose or too tight, which is typical of this type of application. You'll need either a small spring or some tape to make it stay in your personal sweet-spot.

CONCLUSION
If you're a beginner or intermediate player looking for a good-quality HSS Strat that won't break the bank, this is a definite contender. Great deal and upgrade platform: as you get better and want to get to know a guitar by working on it, or someone who needs a backup guitar, or just to get a strat type w/ HSS layout?
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M
Excellent for the price !
MariusA 24.08.2022
I have bought it for my son, it is very nice and smooth, the quality of material is quite ok, considering the price.
It has a pro aspect and is perfect compatible with HB 20R.
The only con is that the humbucker`s springs are not very tensioned, if I press on the coil, it balances towards the bridge and remains that position, does not come to center position. It does not seem to a functionality problem, is only visible.
Strings should be upgraded, the E low and A sometimes vibrate very annoying.
Overall, for a beginner it is excellent and for this price is best offer !
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CC
My Favorite
Captain C 06.06.2022
This guitar is so much fun to play! Every time I look at it, it's screaming, "pick me up and play me!" Finally, after trying many different guitars, I have found my daily guitar that I play for hours on end. What do I love about this guitar?

- Satin finish. Extremely smooth and fast. (why don't more guitars have a satin finish neck?)
- Lightweight
- Black finish that I really don't care that much about, meaning, if it gets nicked or scratch, that would just add character. The black aesthetic with tortoise shell pickguard appeals to my sense of style.
- S type styling that is very comfortable sitting or standing
- The low price

The only knock is that the pickups are clearly not the best in terms of tone and variety. A) who cares, this is a practice guitar. B) easy enough to change them if I want to. C) They sound like an S type, which is what you would expect. They just don't sound like a PRS or genuine Fender noiseless for obvious reasons.

For reference, I am fairly new to the guitar (2.5 years) and I have actually purchased and used the following guitars in the last two years in my search for a guitar to fall in love with:
- Epiphone LP Vintage
- HB tele
- HB CST24HB
- HB DC Custom
- HB SC Custom II
- HB HB-35 Plus
- Epiphone Prophecy
- Sire S7
- EART E35
- Donner cheap S type

I still have the Epiphone LP Vintage that I kept because it was my first guitar. I still have the HB-35 Plus because I love it also, but it's a very different machine. All the others were either returned or I resold them.

I will keep this ST20HSS and play it til my fingers bleed. Yes, it is an inexpensive thrasher guitar, and yes, it is so much fun to play. I highly recommend it.
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RL
Kid's First Electric Guitar, great choice
Rick Leeming 02.03.2024
I don't play guitar, I play Banjo so I bought this for my daughter after looking over similarly priced second hand guitars. Unimpressed with the condition of them I started looking and was recommended HB guitars.

Having previously played acoustic and knowing she wanted a Strat style I went through the various reviews and this came top as a good guitar for the price.
Arrived well packaged (double boxed) and took 4 working days from Germany (I'm UK based). Postage was a very reasonable £10. For £105 total I couldn't have bought a decent condition 2nd hand from a "big" manufacturer.

After unpacking I had some help setting it up. Other than dropping the action slightly it didn't need any work. The finish is excellent, looks and feels good.

It has been looked at by a workmate (2 LPs amoung other guitars) and her guitar teacher they're impressed with it. Teacher is impressed enough he's considering getting a similar one for pupils.

Overall I think a Good Buy for anyone wanting a guitar that is good value and plays well for a new-ish player.
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D
Cool but ...
Deutschland 09.03.2022
some frets scratch the hand. there are several dead notes after the 15th fret on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd string. the five position switch only works in three positions unfortunately. and so in general, the guitar is good, beautiful and of good quality, it's worth the money!!
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M
Store review.
Monotoneman 13.02.2022
I really liked the store. I am very pleased with the purchase. This is by far the best guitar in my collection. The build quality amazed me. Me and all my friends admire the value for money. In our country, it is simply impossible to find instruments in this price range. Everything is great! From looks to sound. I am delighted. Thanks a lot for your work. I will buy tools only from you!
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F
Great Budget frendly guitar
FoiNikola 21.12.2021
Great guitar with great sound. Has both types of pickups so it enables you to play something clean and funky but it has dual coil bridge pickup so if you want to kick it into higher gear and play some distortion stuff it offers great sound. Easy to setup and change wires. Only flaw is that if you use the tremolo system it goes out of tune quickly but guitar costs less than a tank of gas. Great for beginners, easy to play. If you decide you don't want to play anymore it doesn't matter because it isn't a lot of money and if you keep playing you can go long time without buying another guitar because for playing at home, having fun and learning on budget, it's the best guitar on the site!!
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kt
Good begginer guitar
kku tsu 27.05.2023
If you are looking to learn and maybe play a couple gigs, this will do the job, the quality is good and setup was great from out the box, just needed to lower action from the bridge but the neck bow was perfect for a low action. You can get some variety of usable sounds but don't expect anything crazy, especially if you have paired this guitar with another HB cheap amp. Good enough for learning, good enough for gigging. This is the best cheap begginer guitar I would recommend if I had to.
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J
Great Guitar
JTSK 22.09.2020
This is an excellent sounding guitar for the price. The pickups are no name pickups however they sound really good. I was surprised when playing the guitar how well it played. It came perfectly set up and the intonation was spot on. The matte finish is super cool looking. The guitar is well made, not a flaw at all on anything. The only complaint I have is purely from aesthetic and that's the plastic protective film on the pickguard. When removing the film parts of a 2nd layer of film underneath started to peel off as well and looked horrible. I have never seen 2 layers of film on a pickguard. The top came off very easy and with it some pieces of the 2nd layer however the 2nd layer is nearly impossible to get off all the way. I am still working at it and may have to remove the pickguard to get it off with heat or something that will soften the glue. So right now it looks a bit spotty. Other than that, I really have nothing to complain about. This is a great guitar for all levels. Advanced players will likely want to mod this. I actually love it the way it is however I can see adding some seymour duncan pickups, a tusq nut, an upgraded bridge and locking tuners. The tuners are ok but could be better. The tremelo bar is a little loose however I was able to fix that with plumbers tape which fixed the extra play in the bar and the looseness of it. All oi all, yes, this is a really good guitar for under $100 and has a ton of potential to be a really great guitar with a few mods. Absolutely incredible. Great work Harley Benton!
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d
Very good for the price but needed work
dandrews 03.09.2022
For $85.00 US, I don’t think you will find a better guitar.

I went to place an order for an HB35 Lemon Semi Hollow and happened to see this HB ST-20HSS SBK. I am not, nor have I ever been, a Strat player but I thought this 20HSS was really cool looking. I figured for the price, even if it was junk, I could hang it on a wall as art so I added it to my order. Well, this thing really surprised me.

When I took the guitar out of the box I was taken by it’s appearance. The red and black pick guard really went well with the matte black finish on the body, with just enough red so as not to be gaudy. The hardware, pickups, etc. all blended nicely giving what I consider to be a kind of a mean, “metal/shredder” vibe. Cosmetically, it was very nice, no major flaws that I could find. Of course you usually don’t buy a guitar for looks only so on to the mechanics and playability.

After a quick tune, it became obvious that more work would be needed to make this an acceptable and playable instrument. I had no illusions that an $85 guitar would be perfect or even close to really good so I expected to find things wrong.

The first thing was a rattle from the bridge. One of the intonation screws had backed out and was loose. No problem, I was planning on putting in a roller bridge anyway. Second, the nut was plastic and I knew that would get upgraded at some point, but upon inspecting it, I found the string slots were cut way too deep and the nut length was too short for the neck width. The plastic nut itself was 42mm long as stated in the specs but the width of the neck at the nut slot was 43+mm so the nut really looked like it was the wrong one for the guitar. Third, the frets were not even close to being finished. Unpolished and gritty feeling. Fourth, super dry fret board. This seems to be a common issue especially with budget guitars so it was expected. Fifth, the strings were so bad my fingers were black after a few minutes of playing. Again, not a big deal, I was planning on changing them anyway.

Okay, most of the “problems” were easily corrected except for the nut. I replaced the stock saddles with roller saddles. Rattle gone. The frets were all pretty level and there was no fret sprouting even though the fret board was dry. I cleaned and polished the frets and oiled the fret board. The neck was actually very good, no twists and straight with a slight relief. No truss adjustment needed. The tuners were pretty good, no backlash or slippage, and the pickups and controls were fine for me so I left them all alone.

Now, the nut. I don’t want to get into an overly long diatribe about this but if you decide to change the nut yourself you might want to know what you’re getting into. Removing the nut was no picnic. It was heavily glued in and removing it was a little unnerving especially for an amateur like me. I could have had this done at the guitar shop near me but I wanted to learn to do it myself. I got the nut out after spending about an hour on it (and trying very hard not to damage the neck) and found that the glue that was used had melted the plastic nut almost the entire length of the nut and that melted plastic was really stuck and embedded into the nut slot. After spending a lot of time, I got the plastic cleaned out, being very careful not to widen or deepen the slot itself. I purchased a Tusq XL nut which was well over 43mm long (remember, the original 42mm one was too short) and was also little taller than the original nut. A little fine sanding where needed and I got it to fit like a glove. I installed the strings and checked the string height at the first fret. Right on the money. Removed the nut, put one drop of glue in the middle of the slot, reinstall the nut and strings and done. Full disclosure, I did make myself a drink after that.

After making the final adjustments to the saddle and final tuning, this thing plays and sounds great. Stays in tune even after using the whammy bar heavily.

In the end, the price of the guitar (not including shipping cost) and the cost of upgrade materials came to around $140.00 US. With a little work, this guitar turned out to be a really nice, comfortably playing instrument. Definitely not getting hung on a wall anymore!
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Harley Benton ST-20HSS SBK Standard Series