Harley Benton ST-62 BK Vintage Series

First I would like to thank Henning Pauly who did a great job of reviewing this guitar on youtube. If you are considering buying one of these check out his video as well as reading owner reviews.

By way of background, I have owned and played professionally a 70's hardtail Fender Strat, a 90's Strat Ultra and a Tom Anderson hollow drop top Classic. I have sold all of these as I was leaving the UK to work abroad permanently and for the last fourteen years I have been using modelling guitars exclusively for work. Coming up to retirement I decided to build up a collection of guitars for self amusement and have picked up some amazing instruments, many at smile - inducing low prices. The only Strat I had was a Vintage V6 with maple fingerboard which is a worthy instrument but as all my expensive Strats had rosewood or Ebony boards I decided after seeing Henning's video and the pricetag to Give the HB a try.
The bridge and Jack socket plate look cheapish and the scratch plate is sitting proud at the treble horn. The tremelo block looks very thin but I am keeping it hardtail so cannot comment on it's worth. Remember the price and read on. The rosewood board smells strange but I have this on another chinese guitar and once cleaned and oiled it should even out, however the board itself is one of the nicest pieces of rosewood I have seen on a guitar, It goes from dark brown to an almost Rickenbacker orange in a nice marbled style.

Out of the box the guitar plays beautifully and sounds like a Strat. The rosewood board is like an old friend to me already. The Wilkinson pickups look like they may be less expensive than the ones on the Vintage guitar but both sound great. The controls work well and I love the pickguard which is almost flame like and on arrival there was a double layer of protective plastic covering it! The neck is poly coated but still really smooth under your hand. I love the weight and at 3.3 Kg it is one of the lightest and most comfortable guitars I have played on a strap. It sounds and plays better than my 70's Strat, sounds more Strat like than my Ultra with Lace Sensors and while not as good or flexible as the Tom Anderson, it didn't cost two and a half Grand!!! I would be perfectly happy using this instrument live!

Summing up, anyone who plays guitar and is looking for a Strat-a-like has an incredible range af makes and prices to choose from but unless you are looking for a unit with a quality Tremolo Bridge for dive bombing you should give it a try and if you don't like it, at this price hang it on a wall as decoration.

I was looking for a cheap guitar, which looks fairly good, and plays well. The hardware were not a point as I probably was gonna replace them anyway. I think the most important part of a guitar is the neck, if it's bad, you won't like it. This guitar is the perfect platform. The neck is gorgeous, mine has some really minor dents, but all-in-all it's beautiful color and satin finish with a medium thickness gives it a wonderful feel. 22 frets are also a big plus. I've raised the degree of the neck so that the strings lay flat all the way through. Also raised the vibrato bar and set it up to float, added some graphite to the nut. This guitar is rock solid. It holds tune suprisingly well even with the vintage tuners, it even handles some divebombs if you're not extremly violent. For light vibrato use it's flawless, it holds tune nicely and sounds really good. Again, we're talking about a fully cheap spec guitar. I kid you not, this is on par with the base spec Fender strats. The pickups tho - the neck and mid pickups are really nice, but the bridge pickup lacks bass a lot. It's nice for some overdriven rock tones, but for cleans it's so flat that you would mistake it for a plank. Definitely the pickups are the weak point of this guitar, and also the cheap plastic pickguard and potentiometer knobs, but again, these are things that you can easily replace for higher quality ones.

I'm fully satisfied with this instrument and it quickly became one of my favourite guitars. 10/10 would recommend.

Honestly, I don't really know how this is possible. I bought this as an alternative to using my Fender American Strat in certain situations, but primarily as a project guitar that I can pull apart and upgrade over the next few years. My original plan was to replace the pickups and machine heads, based on my assumption that it couldn't possibly be decent at this price point. Having received it, let it settle for a few days and having had a good look over it, I have to admit that it is such a brilliant buy. I used it live last night for the first time and everyone was amazed at the tone and the fit and finish. The neck feels great (still going to sand the lacquer off though) and it held its tune on a par with the other more expensive guitars on stage. Honestly, this is the ideal guitar for everyone - a brilliant starter guitar (for the same price as the 'Rockwood' I bought over 20 years ago) and an excellent backup/base for a project. I suspect that i'll be buying more of these :)

My grandson was so impressed with my sunburst ST-62 that we ordered one for him. Just like mine, the guitar arrived in excellent condition without any shipping damage. As it turned out it required only a minor setup procedure (no truss rod adjustment was necessary). Please note that these guitars ship with the tremolo locked down so be sure to adjust the springs (or not should you prefer a hard tail setup) before intonating it. This is a solid, well-balanced guitar. The fit was almost perfect having a slight warp in the pick guard causing a minor gap with the body. As for the finish it was spotless. The color of the maple neck unlike the Squier's almost white-look, is a rich, seasoned brownish yellow. The only downside to the black body is that it shows fingerprints, smears, etc., but that is the nature of 'black'. However, I liked it so much that I almost wished I had ordered one instead of sunburst. My grandson reports that there is no comparison to his Fender Squier. According to him the feel and sound of the ST-62 blows the Squier away for the same price! The Wilkinson pickups deliver a richer, hotter sound than the Squier which now has become 'wall art'.

Allthough I have several stratocasters which are pretending to be better in money value, e.g. an Fender Clapton signature and two early 90's Made In Japan Fender customised to my needful ears, every Saturday morning after running my 10 mile plus stretch, I again and again see myself reaching for this Thomann Strat.

Thomann, you did a great job here!
If one did not know the price and the Benton brand, you would swear you were playing a Ritchie Blackmore strat.....

The Roswell pu's have a nice ring to them, on my Fender ROCPro1000 amp the HB ST-62 starts screaming quite fast, as for my other strats the gain has to go up another 3 digits on the knob. As I said, nice for the Saturday morning with the windows open so my neigbours can also enjoy the finest hour of their weekend!

The only con I could find which can be improved was the neck and tuners. The neck is a bit chunky and the action has to be professionally put down, even so with the frets, they are a bit rough. Change for locking tuners. Put Ernie Balls on her. The Lady will become the tramp you wanted her to be.

Keep up the good work Thomann! Respect!

"Howh" from the Dutch Indian here!!