Harley Benton TE-20HH SBK Standard Series

Like most guitarists, I have a robust collection of axes. I've spent the past several years building my own - buying the parts (body, neck, pickups, plates, pickguards, etc.) and doing the assembling, wiring, finish, etc. myself. Recently, my son turned me on the HB's and this one caught my eye. When it arrived, I was immediately impressed. All in all, this is a great bargain with a few caveats to consider.

First, the good (and some exceptional).

1) After 70 years, you still can't beat the tele design, and aside from the fact that this is an HH, this guitar is faithful to the original.

2) The guitar is super light thanks to the basswood body and maple neck combination. it can be around your neck all night and you won't even notice it.

3) The satin finish and the overall aesthetic is great. It's better than great. It's outstanding for an axe in this price range.

4) The satin neck is very playable and looks and feels great.

5) The pickups are not bad. I'll replace them eventually, but for stock pickups in a bargain guitar, they're definitely better than most. They take well to gain and saturated distortion without losing any of the overall articulation.

6) The electronics were done well. No cold solder joints and very clean, which was unexpected (I've seen lousy wiring even in expensive guitars). As I expect in a guitar in this price range they installed mini-pots instead of standard sized ones, but they do the job and I'll end up replacing them anyway.

7) It was shipped and arrived in the United States very quickly. (Kudos to Thomann Music for that one!)

Now, the caveats (and some are bad).

1) The fretwork on the one I received is TERRIBLE. The fret ends are so bad that they're actually dangerous. I've cut my index finger on the sharp edges twice. It's so bad that I'm taking it in to my luthier and not even trying to do it myself. I've done a lot of basic fret dressing on my guitars, but this requires a professional to clean it up and get it right. Depending on what he says, I fear that I may have to replace the frets entirely.

2) While the choice of pickguard looks good on the black satin finish (even better than the pictures), I wanted to replace it only to find out that it's not a standard Fender Tele pickguard. Even the screw holes don't match. I'm either going to have to cut my own, get a standard one and modify it, or paint the one that came with it. For now I'm leaving it alone, but eventually I'm going to have to make a choice.

3) The tuning machines are horrible. They range from usable, to extremely stiff (can hardly turn them), to unusably sloppy and loose. I've got replacements on order. The good news is that they appear to be standard 10mm's, and according to the forums, the 6-inline Gotoh tuners will drop right in. I'll find out in a couple of days. To be fair, this is a common issue on bargain guitars and I expected to replace them when I decided to order the guitar, so it's not like it's as bad as the issue with the frets.

So here's my overall impression:

If you're looking for a great rock/metal/punk tele that looks great and sounds good for a ridiculously low price, you're not going to do better than this. The overall value is outstanding. If you're looking for an inexpensive platform that you can customize to make your own tele flamethrower, I can't think of a better way to go.

Would I recommend this guitar? Yes.
Would I buy it again? Absolutely.
Should you expect the quality of one of the bigger brands? Of course not!

In conclusion, this is a great bargain. I'm glad I bought it, and I'm looking forward to dialing it in and putting it into rotation.

Ordered this guitar from Thomman and had it for 3 days now, played for 3 hours /day.
Delivery: It took 2 weeks to get from Germany to southern Spain, Malaga (admittedly there were 2 national holiday days en route). No idea why Thomman passed it on to Spanish regular mail service...
Out of the box: Right out of the box the guitar was unplayable and I had to adjust truss rod and lower the saddles, plays fine now, though the result is that the saddle screws are now really high and sharp and make it painful to palm-mute, may need to change screws or take to my luthier.
Sound: straight into my Crate V32 valve amp both clean and distortion sounds are really good, sounds as good as any 500€-700€ guitar I've heard.
Looks: The matt black finish looks really cool and adds extra mojo.
All in all, a great value guitar that can be modded (tuners, pickups if needed, etc) should you want it to be gig ready. Thinking about ordering some locking tuners for mine. Peace! Thanks Thomman for the great price

I wanted a black guitar but hadn’t considered a variation of “black before coming across Thomann’sTE-20 HH SBK. Once looking at it on the website, I became intrigued by the way it looked, the price, and then the pick up configuration. I watched a few reviews and sound clips and thought what do I have to lose by trying. I’m so happy that I took the chance because this guitar really outperformed my expectations just like the reviews said it would. I do wish it had a full thickness body because I just have a irrational notion about that spec, but I came to the conclusion that because of its light weight, it’s part of the reason that the Teles playability is so easy and fun. This thing can hang with my Ibanez super strat with ease. I mainly use this for metal and power chords but that’s really what I wanted to do with it, so in closing, my recommendation is, don’t let the price fool you, trust the reviews and my experience, this is a keeper that will be a conversation piece amongst your peers.

At the price point I was expecting some areas to be somewhat disappointing as I once had a very low cost guitar that had quite a few issues. But the TE20 HH SBK that I received had only a couple of issues.
The action was a little high on the low E string and the intonation was off on the same string. I adjusted the action and replaced the strings after which I adjusted the intonation. Fortunately the only string that needed attention was the low E string as the other strings were spot on. But those were the only issues that needed to be attended.
The fit and finish of the guitar is actually very good. The neck and frets are very nice with no fret sprout or roughness on the frets. The neck joint is very tight and strong. The finish of the SBK is also very nice and I kind of look forward to seeing how it ages with playing it over the coming years. It will be cool to create my own patina to the guitar.