Harley Benton Fusion-T HH HT EB BK

Reviews are not something I do often and they are usually pretty short.
Harley Benton guitars keeps coming up in various reviews on Youtube and my curiosity finally got the better of me, I had to order one to see for myself what this was all about.
I did not want to go for one of the less expensive models but instead wanted to see what the higher priced models would look, sound and feel like. I chose the HB Fusion-T HH HT EB BK mainly because I don’t have a Tele style guitar already and I like the black finish and, the reviews I had seen.
The guitar arrived a little over a week after ordering, well packed and with no damage to either outer or inner box. I let the box sit in room temperature for a few hours after it arrived, I always to that to shipped guitars and electronics.
After unpacking, I spent some time going over the guitar just looking for any possible flaws, there were none, absolutely none.
I tuned the guitar and checked for intonation and a couple of string had to have a small adjustment but nothing serious. Even much more expensive Gibson’s need intonation adjustments.
The craftmanship behind this guitar is immaculate, the quality control flawless, this is a high quality instrument, super solid and beautiful to look at.
The neck is smooth as a baby’s a.. fretwork, polished better than any of my other guitars, fret ends are maybe not as rounded as they are on much higher priced guitars but they are well done anyway and don’t need any work.
Tuners are smooth and the guitar stays in tune very well.
Pick up’s are hot and sounds great, I have run them through the new VOX Cambridge 50 and an older Mesa Subway Blues and it sounds great on both.
The black piano finish on the top and the beautiful red back and side is a very nice combination of colors.
A review without a Con is not a real review and I do have one, the balance is not great, the guitar is very top heavy, more than my Gibson SG, it will take some time getting used to, I might try to add some lead to the potentiometer cavity to see if that helps with the balance, the guitar is not very heavy anyway.
If you have been looking at this guitar but are undecided, I can only say that I am very happy that I did buy this one. The quality is much higher than the price suggest.

A well-rounded guitar for any type of player. Roswell pickups sound great for this price range, and overall fit and finish of the body and the neck is amazing. The neck is a smooth, pleasant-to-touch matte finish, which is perfect for players whose hands tend to get sweaty (like mine!) while playing. The ebony fretboard is sleek and pleasant to look at, and with the addition of the stainless steel frets and Graphtech nut it is a very nice guitar to own and play on. Very impressed!

The only complaint from my side would be the factory strings; B snapped after about three weeks of everyday noodling, but that might be a QC issue. Swapped them for GHS strings and couldn't be any happier!

Good job Harley Benton and Thomann!

I've had this guitar for about 4 months now. The neck is incredible. the stainless steel frets are perfect. No sharp edges. The guitar stays in tune relatively well for a hard picker like myself and holds sustain relative to higher end guitars. I had to change the nut because it was cut too deep and had a bit of buzzing after I lowered the saddles. But that is a personal preference. The only downside I can think of would be the pickups and the pots. The pots are 250k. But that is also a personal preference. There's absolutely nothing wrong with the Rosewell pickups and 250k push/pull pots, I just wanted something a little brighter with a tad more bite. After changing them out for a pair of Seymour Duncans and 500k pots, this guitar really shines. And I STILL saved a bunch of money even after the upgrades. You won't find another guitar that's as good as a HB in this price range, it's unbeatable. I was pleasantly surprised

I have 2 Fender Teles but wanted to get into jazz, I didn't want to put 12-50 flatwounds on those guitars so I bought the HB HH HT BK so I could mess with it without breaking the bank if it all went wrong. However, from un-boxing to a micro-inspection, everything looked top quality. I was surprised, even more so when I compared it with the Player Plus Tele I'd bought a few months earlier. They are equal in all practical respects ... except for the price of course. I put on the super-heavy flatwounds and made the required saddles adjustments for intonation and truss rod to get everything back in line. It was already in excellent shape as delivered. The Roswells are quite dark but that's exactly why I bought a humbucker equipped guitar. It is now a jazz Telecaster in all respects and was even accepted by the archtop brigade at the local club as "far better than I'd thought". Of course, for them, only a hollow bodied Gibson would do the job but, in reality, this thing is better, smaller, less noisy (none!) and far more friendly to play. A huge success all round.

In an age where you can buy a bad guitar for thousands and a good guitar for hundreds, it's a minefield for the first-time buyer - on any budget. I have several guitars (of all prices), and I'm in my 50s. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about so I ordered this because the online reviews were great and it looked great too.

To give you a fair comparison, I bought a Squire Tele a couple of years ago - and while the basic build quality was 'good enough', it wasn't as good as this. Both guitars were well built, well set up - save for necessary ajustments to the action - and both looked good out of the box.

The difference is that, on the Squire, I had to change the pickups, the tuners, the bridge saddles, the pots and the switch - to make it 'good enough to play' (for me). On the Harley Benton, I cannot immediately justify changing anything but the switch (a little bit noisy on use) to make it 'good enough to play', which is ridiculous, especially given that the Squire cost about 33% more than the HB.

The hard-tail bridge is better, the Tusq XL nut, the finish - all better than you'd reasonably expect for this price. It has stainless steel frets (well dressed) and staggered locking tuners too (unheard of for the price). 'Pinch yourself' stuff, really.

There was the odd imperfection, but nothing at all vital and it would be churlish to detail them here. If you want perfection - pay 2-3 times the price and hope for the best.

I'm sure there will be good and bad ones (like all guitars). If the guitar doesn't feel good enough to play - send it back. Luckily, you can't lose with Thomann, as they want you to be happy. In a nutshell, expect a very nice guitar for the price and send it back if it isn't. Don't expect perfection because, for the money, it just needs to be effortlessly playable and nothing more.

It's also beautiful. Looks classy. Something to be proud of and play well. I wish this was available when I was 17.

I've been playing for decades and I've owned a few guitars over the years. I've recently started a collection of Harley Benton guitars because they are the ultimate proof that we live in the golden age of inexpensive guitars. This guitar in particular is a great example of the quality that this company produces. Yes, you may need to level 2 or 3 frets that are slightly too high or lower the action. Maybe you feel a need to install pickups that you may prefer to the ones fitted but, there's no denying that this guitar is beautiful, ergonomic and addictively playable. I love the neck on this guitar, it's so easy to play. It's quite lightweight too. For this kind of money you really can't go wrong. I'm trying to think of bad points but I can't, I've really bonded with this guitar. I changed the pickups because I prefer a more vintage sound that suits what I play, this is just personal taste. The stock pickups were too modern sounding for me, more suited to heavy distortion maybe.
You won't be disappointed with this guitar for this price, it's worth at least double easily. Buy one, plug it in and smile in disbelief as it amazes you in every way a great guitar can.

I bought the strat style fusion about a year ago and that one has become my go-to guitar since then. However, I also wanted a guitar with a fixed bridge (for easy drop D or Eb) so decided to check out the Fusion T.

Spec-wise they look very similar to the strat style fusions, but the actual sound of the guitar is slightly less bright (which I like!) has more bottom end and way better sustain. Using the coil-split you can get a more aggressive tone, in particular in the bridge position. The one thing I noticed was that the guitar is slightly neck heavy, so it needs a bit of getting used to. Other than that a great guitar which I'm using in my (amateur) band now as my main guitar combined with a Helix.

Overall (in particular for the money that was paid) a 5 star rating, except for the quality. The volume pot is a bit "scratchy" and I needed to lift the tone and volume knobs slightly as they were damaging the paint. Just some minor issues, technically everything works as it should.

Overall, these HB Fusion guitars are great value for money and they are perfect for use live if you don't care about what name is printed on the headstock....