Harley Benton TE-20MN CA Standard Series

The finish of the guitar is extremely beautiful, but the neck feels too cheap and it had fret buzz all around, no way to be fixed with setup. I know, it is a budget guitar, it was going to be my 5th HB, but quality doesn't come even closer to the others, it just felt as a different brand.

I had good expectations after the other reviews and youtube reviews, but I guess at this price point it is matter of hit or miss with QC. The other HB guitars I have are more than double the price, but still being budget they easily compete with my Gibson LP Studio. I knew that for this one neck pickup sound was going to be bad (too muddy), because of youtube reviews, but I was prepared to change it. Bridge is good enough to stay for some time.

So far, all good, no problem, I return the guitar and buy something else, this things can happen you know? Although I have been Thomann customer for years, never had to do a return, I would say that is quite good, but this is where it all went downhill. I can't go out of home because health issues and it took me almost a week for them to arrange a pickup from home (me paying a small reasonable fee) as at the beginning it was denied saying the only option was for me to go to the public post office, when I know they do make UPS home pickups.

In the order there were some things I bought for this guitar that I returned, but I kept 4 beautiful HB volume knobs valued in less than 10 euros, so, since I didn't return the whole order I lose the 15 euros that I paid for the delivery at home (order was less than 199 euros). So, those very expensive budget HB volume knobs I have now. You know, this is because those small letters big company have somewhere and we irresponsibly never read or see.

So, save some trouble to you, do not buy this guitar so you don't risk a potential refund, if you still what to buy from Thomann, which I get because they have nice stuff, go for a higher tier HB guitars, they are awesome, go for the CST 24Ts, any of them, or if you want T-Style, take the fusion T. In what regards to myself, more likely this was the last buy from Thomann, I have enough Harley Benton guitars, nowadays you can find the mainstream brands at the same price (or lower) and equivalent policies in other online stores.

This is not a one time bad customer experience for me, couple of months ago I bought a B stock guitar, they sent the wrong model, same guitar with different pickups. I got compensation and the guitar was amazing still, but that's not the point.

People in customer service has been not helpful, impersonal and zero vibes, and come on, you sell music machines, you need to have some vibes. They are busy, I understand that, but they make you notice how little time they have, although they are supposed to be there for us. The people they show in youtube should be the ones taking over customer service, they seem cool (good PR). Some consulting in customer experience would work some good for Thomann customer service.

Good luck if you decide to taker this guitar.

UPDATE: No refund for the 15 euros, just a free shipping code, which will be only useful to buy less than 199 euros. Not cool as I am tied to buy from Thomann again, but well, of course I will take advantage of it, good marketing strategy. Still more likely will be last time, there are other nice online stores located in Germany also. By the way, they took 4 days after receiving the guitar to inspect it, and the refund is still not back to me, I guess it will happen on a weekday, so since I sent the guitar back it will be around 10 days to get the money again.

So, I ordered a Harley Benton TE style guitar just about a week ago, everything was quite alright until I found something wrong with the neck. The end of the neck is curved up, leading to some dead frets on the high E string, and unfortunately, this can't be fixed. I even brought the TE to a (local) luthier and the response was the same. Thomann should really be more strict with the quality control, since products (especially guitars) that are ordered online, at least from my experience, are usually hit or miss. Or... maybe it's also because of the cold weather condition, I don't know.

But seriously, I LOVE THE CANDY APPLE RED FINISH on this TE-20! Even though I'll be returning the guitar soon, I still look forward to ordering another one once again in the future when it's safe to say the quality has been improved.

Just to clear things up, this is only my case; not every guitar is the same. (Psst, don't pay attention to the rating score, I can't really decide how many stars to give, so I'll leave 'em like this.)