Harley Benton ST-62DLX VW Vintage Series

I am writing this short review after almost six months of having this guitar so I think I know know what are its pros and cons. The truth is that you cannot buy a better stratocaster for that price (we are talking about new guitars, not used ones). I've had almost all Squier guitars in my hands and, really, the only Squier that could be said to have been equal to this HB would be the Classic Vibe - which is now 3 times more expensive. But straight to the point
- The neck is probably the best part of that guitar. It is rather thin than thick, yet the fretboard is quite wide which makes it overall very comfortable to play. Not to mention, that the neck comes with a great glossy finish and a real-bone nut.
- Roswell pickups are also great in terms of sound. This is just as close to that bright, stratty sound as you can get. Really no need to replace them, they sound great, especially some dirty clean/crunch presets.
- Very good tremolo bridge. The block is much thicker than in other strat guitars. The tuners are OK. The guitar stands in tune most of the time and you can do some tricks with the whammy bar but you have to be careful. It's good overall but a divebomb is to much for the tuners to handle - but it was to be expected.
- The strings were quite high above the frets when I unboxed the guitar so bear in mind that before you start playing - the hardware needs to be set up.
Overall it is a great Stratocaster guitar. I am very pleased with it.

I bought this guitar basically to try out different pickups. I was hoping that the stock pickups would change my mind. But sadly no, they were kinda of thin sounding to my individual taste, Guitar is not shielded so be prepared for noise and hum.
I took off the anodised pickguard as it was picking up some static. Change the pickguard to a Harley Benton Parts Pickguard SSS Parchment A.
I think the guitar is worth getting as the workmanship and hardware are up to par. No sharp frets..intonation is well done although the tremolo bridge is set up as a non floating bridge.
If you can live with the sound of the pickups then you will thoroughly enjoy it without spending any more money.
My review of this guitar is @ my youtube channel
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Jonathan Koh

My third Harley Benton guitar and, as with all the others, I'm ultimately extremely happy with it. It's a drop dead gorgeous guitar in my opinion, kinda like a golden milkshake type vibe. Aesthetically there is little to complain about. The fret board has one small dark 2cm streak in what is otherwise a uniformly light brown color but, while taking away from "perfection", it doesn't really bother me at all. The frets themselves were adequately polished but there was one single fret that had a slightly pointy end-edge. a tiny bit of polishing with grit paper took care of it feel wise but it left a slight discoloration where I had polished. No biggie.

As is not unusual with HB guitars, the strings mounted on the instrument when shipped were a bit rusty, but I had ordered spares. Intonation was perfect out-of-the-box but the action overall was not properly adjusted, resulting in a lot of rustling sounds especially on the thinner strings. Simply raising all individual strings at the base (using the tool that came with the guitar) to the max was still not enough so I ended up having to play with the truss rod adjustment as well, again with a hexagonal spanner that came shipped with the guitar. This was the first time ever that I performed this kind of adjustment myself (trussrod/action) and while I think a real luthier could do a better job, I at least I got it to the point where the action is acceptable to me. It would have been nice if this had been done before shipping it out and this issue is the primary reason why I only give four stars on quality and not five.

At first I thought there must be something wrong with the output of the electronics in the guitar, because the amp (bought with the guitar) was producing a terrible high pitched whine nearly all the time. Eventually I realized that the noise came from the refrigerator located in the same room, and unplugging this instantly eliminated the annoying whine.

So yea, all in all, very happy, would buy again and I play it every day! Now time to start saving up for a Les Paul copy :)

Final update: been playing this pretty much every day for over two years and one thing I can't help but notice is that the neck has shrunk ever so slightly. As a result all the frets are now a little bit too wide and especially towards the body they protrude noticeably resulting in the skin on my hands getting torn a bit when I handle the guitar. Also the high E often gets stuck under a fret. Will try to file them all down at some point, hopefully I can do it without ruining the finish too much. Apart from this I still love the guitar and would buy again.

It was a bit of a gamble getting this guitar, considering that I was not familiar with playing Harley Bentons. Having read the reviews I was happy to go out on a limp and get it, and I am very happy with this decision.

Basically, if you're looking for a 400-500 EUR Fender stratocaster but can't afford it, this is as close you can get for 200 EUR.

Pros:

- Really fat neck
- Pickups were better than expected.
- Looks much better in real life than in the pictures as the pick guard is like a faded gold.

Cons:

- It required a little bit of tweaking before it reaches ''full potential'' to play on, but this can be done within 15 minutes and is fine for me considering the price.

All in all, I would definitely recommend this as a starter guitar, a modest expansion of your current guitar collection or even as a gift. Great value for money.