Harley Benton CST-24TOL Tobacco Flame BStock

I purchased this Harley Benton CST-24TOL along with a number of other HB guitars, 5 in all.

For the record, I have been playing guitar for over 30 years as a semi-pro and have a number of expensive Fenders, Gibsons, Brian Moore etc .

I was really blown away by the quality of this guitar when I pulled it from the box, the finish is great, and although the flame top obviously can't be right up there with the likes of PRS it is still a respectable effort. The neck is quite comfortable, if feels ...grippy...but not too chunky..I have small hands so I prefer smaller necks but I've played this guitar for a few hours no problem. The frets are quite well finished, no sharp edges, and seem quite polished. The action was slightly higher than I prefer but I easily lowered the bridge a couple of turns to adjust that, no fret buzz , I can bend strings higher up with no choking. I changed the strings immediately to 9-42 set (came with 10-46) and oiled the fretboard at the same time.

I checked the truss rod and it seems to be at the end of its relief so If I wanted to straighten the neck I wouldn't be able to unfortunately, hopefully I won't need to.

The hardware is fine too, good tuners, reasonably good pickups (Wilkinson) not too hot but definately good for blues, rock, jazz and even a bit of twang in the middle position. All in all, well pleased with this guitar and I will probably buy one of the other Harley Bentons PRS alike..Harley Benton CST-24T Paradise Amber Flame to go with it.

I'll do some other reviews on the Harley Bentons I got too...there were some other crackers! Well pleased with this one.

Guitar arrived 2 days ago and looks superb. How anyone can make a guitar like this
for so little amazes me. There are a few cosmetic blemishes bur nothing worth a mention. Out of the box the action was way high so sorted that out and gave the truss rod a tweek now it plays nicely.
Sound wise pretty good considering the price. The humbuckers a little darker than the rest of my guitars, more jazzy sounding but still very good.
I have a lot of USA made guitars some costing 10 to 20 times what I paid for this but got to say they are not 10 to 20 times better.
Would definitely reccommend this guitar and will probably buy a few more Harley Bentons if this one is anything to go by.

Hats off to this PRS alike guitar it is well made, sounds good, looks great and pays respectfull homage to a great marque. I am an experienced player with a number of good guitars. Fender (Strats and Tele's) , Gibson Les Paul, Vintage, Line 6 and others so I have something against which to compare this guitar. It is well made with a solid Mahogany core sides an back with a pin stripe flamed top. This one has an ebony rather than rosewood fingerboard I think, - black as night, no visible grain and it feels very dense. This guitar is not perhaps what you might expect in a semi acoustic instrument like an ES335 the body is no larger than the solid body. It is quite heavy as well coming in at 9 lbs or 4 kg and sounds very much like a classic Les Paul think of Gary Moore plug in your TS808 and the sustain is impressive.

The PRS style scale 24 clear jumbo frets are of good quality and well finished. The neck is rigid and pretty straight and the truss rod was loosened right off. The neck is solid and weighty. I put a new set of Daddario 9-42's (purple) on and with a little tinkering got the action down to a usable level. On delivery I would describe it as being set up for a big strummer. The neck dimensions and scale ape the PRS guitars apart from the volute behind the nut.

The Wilkinson pickups are solid, wax dipped classic rather than hot humbucker's and they work well for this guitar. Volume and tone pots are smooth and the circuit works well.

If it is not clear already I am impressed. This is a great buy! Well done Thomann too this is an excellent value product!

I received this guitar 2 days after i ordered like always!
It came well packaged with all the tools you need to adjust this amazing beauty!
Out of the box there were no flaws on the guitar,string action was a little high,but no big issues.

So i changed the strings (the daddarios it came with were ok...but its my normal routine with new guitars) and the i gave it a setup.

20 minutes later i played it through my eleven rack and its a very versatile guitar. the pickups got a nice charakter and work great with gain too.

The overall build quality of this guitar is just stunning and unbelievable for the price!

Highly recommended!!