Harley Benton TE-90FLT VW Deluxe Series

This guitar far exceeded my expectations as a guitar in sound, affordability, it's unique look, feel and balance, and playability. I am still amazed by the finish, the pickup sound, and high quality craftsmanship of this guitar. At first, I was trying to figure out how to play this guitar, because the action was low and soft, which I like and love but I was used to really working a guitar to get sounds out of it. This guitar simply sounds like one of the $1,000 plus (I'm from the USA) guitars from a USA company (made in Mexico/China/USA), just in regards to the material let alone the sound in that it almost sounds equal, like a 9.5 to 10 on a 1 to 10 scale. I mean I've played other expensive guitars and the TE-90 FLT VW is amazingly light action, so it's hard to get adjusted to the feel and playability. But it's great for jazz, chords. I know it's not expensive, but it feels expensive and I really want another one just so I can play this one hard. I baby this one as if it was a $1,000 guitar, because it just sounds, plays, looks, and plays like one. It's very unique sound, since it's chambered under the pickguard like other another USA guitar style from California with FLT humbucker but this TE-90 sounds equal if not better. It has a jazzy kind of vibe and sound or a little blues or rock too. Really it plays everything, but I love it for chords. The neck just feels right (I like thin/slender necks) since my fingers are not long. Also, the headstock is really unique and you may not like it but I do for it's uniqueness. The weight is perfect, not too light or too heavy. The fretboard is a good flatter radius but not too flat. When you play this you will be able to feel and hear the high quality right away. I'm glad I have this one guitar in my arsenal/toolbox because it has a really warm sound with the two humbuckers and chambered pickguard area. The look is very unique/cool. The fretboard is so playable, once you get used to low action and soft touch, that you can play for hours and forget about the time. The maple fretboard and frets are a bright sound. It really begs you to play it. You can also really shred on it too or go slow and jazzy. I love the belly cut. The only con I have about this guitar is the pickguard does get scratched easily (but it's a pickguard after all); I think it might just be the plastic is not glossy enough, but that's a good thing too, it gives it a different softer look. I'm getting the Three Tone Sunburst, when I have the change because it's a really excellent guitar overall. --Marco, USA

After researching different Tele and Gretsch clones, single coils and humbuckers, I found optimal point between different worlds, something universal.
Pros: Guitar sounds very clear on clean with no hum and has something "brand" in its sound, after what I decided to measure frequency responce on both pickups using white noise and multimeter. I've found 99,5% coincidence whith Filtertrons (AC/DC rythm tone) in all parameters, even resonance frequency peaks. I have Ibanez RG-8 with great sustain, compared to Gibson's. That little Tele has sustain compared to my 8-string wide neck guitar, and far more sustain than my old 1991 Japanese Charvel STX Custom. I was very impressed. Frets are polished, neck is smooth and total feeleng of guitar is frendly for fingerstyle, strings do not out of tune when You push accords on the neck. I think it depends on coming by default strings (9-48 combined d'Addario set). Dirty sounds on bridge are also very good, close to EMG 81, but a bit less fizzy. Neck is good for overdriven solos whithout annoing grit, very careful sound, neck also is useble to play riffs. On both pickups You get a very good clean sound for plaing acoustic-like rythm patterns. All three pickup's combinations are great and useful for clean and overdrive sounds. And one thing more: this guitar has phenomenal distortion sound beeng dropped! That's why I bought it.
Cons: It was needed to tighten the tuner's screws on the bottom and tighten the nuts on the top sides of the neck for guitar to stay in tune. After it was done all came to normal. Tone potentiometer is ALPHA, Volume pot is standard cheap. I think I need to swap them, ALPHA is very good long-live non-crispy pot, it should be on Volume position. Pot's knobes are good-looking, but
do not hold well on, I put two balls of paper inside the knobs so that they do not fail.
Averall I recommend this guitar for every style of music, from jazz to metal. It sits perfect in the mix.

I did a lot of research before purchasing this guitar. I had been wanting a Tele style for my collection. I have Gibson Les Paul's and higher end Fender Strats. I had gone to a local big name Instrument dealer in a near by town and tried Telecasters from the lowest to the highest price range upward of 2000$ and was not satisfied with what I tried out.

But based on the written reviews and Youtube reviews I thought I would give the TE-90FLT a chance. First of all the quick shipping ( 2 days) from Germany to my state of Indiana in the U.S. is remarkable. Local dealers take longer than that.

The but quality of the Guitar is just unbelievable!! The sound, look and feel puts that 2000$ guitar to shame. How you do it for such a low price is just nothing short of magical.

I will be looking for an acoustic down the road and I guarantee Harley Bentons will be the 1st place I look. I wish I had heard of Thomann sooner.

The communication from the sales staff was always up to date to help me feel comfortable during my purchase.

Can't think of a thing you could have done better. Thank You!!!

This saga has been a bit of a double edged sword for me. Good & bad but ultimately good. The story may be long and traumatic for some, do not judge until the end.

1 s t I m p r e s s i o n s - T h e G o o d.
When I first opened the box I was surprised, it didn't look like the badly cropped image on the site. I was expecting something that looked like it had been used to stir grey emulsion paint and wiped down with dry newspaper. Not so. The lacquer is deep and brings the grain of the wood through the thin paint coat very well, and, I cannot find a joint in the body! I've had reports of a two piece but I honestly cant see a joint.

The neck is smooth with no fret ends and a really nice satin finish, the fretboard is not heavily coated either, it should age nicely, it's a bit too light for me, almost almond, so a heavy gloss finish would be bad. It needs dirt and wear.

Tuners felt pretty smooth and held well but don't look anything special. the nut looks to be cut OK and the neck needed no adjustment out of the box. Intonation was a mile out but so what.

T h e B a d - W i t h S o m e G o o d.
Now it gets a bit messy. My eyes moved to the pick ups. I've never had a Filtertron stye before so it was new ground. Again, finish is spot on, chrome is deep, black is black, but....... the screws holding them to the body had mashed up holes where the cross used to be and were put in at an angle so the heads were a few mm proud of the pick up top and wouldn't sit in the counter-bore.
It was then pointed out to me that the bridge wasn't fully seated, I never noticed, explains the intonation. I screwed it down and it has a bow of about 1mm in the middle. By now I'm thinking shall I return? I'd also found a few minor dents (on the back & neck) & noticed around the bottom horn the paint was thin with runs around it.

I'd had a strum out of the box and she felt nice enough, noise from the selector though, I'll give her a play before returning, for old times sake. And then I p l a y e d her.

I sat with honey dripping out of my ears from the blue notes and cracks in my lenses from the power chords and one massive grin, this was impressive because I'm quite audibly offensive when I play. I had a hard decision to make. Should she stay or should she go?

I emailed Thomann a few times, maybe 1st for guidance, then for a replacement, then for a refund, then a price reduction, then I got an answer. Send it back or sort it at your end at your cost and void the warranty. I was a little bit surprised, and a little disappointed at this as customer service has always been at a level most companies can learn from, but I wrote an email back saying I'll keep it. Why?

T h e G o o d.
To sum it up this guitar is a bit of a lemon. It has many more faults than I've mentioned, mainly cosmetic and a few hardware issues. I'm pretty sure that this is a 1st batch run and things will be sorted soon. I have 4 x HB's and an Epi SG from Thomann and this is probably the worst & also the most expensive, my PB-20 is a Deko, go figure?
This is also T H E best guitar out of them all! Without a doubt. This guitar will rip out your soul and drop it at your local crossroads for some horned imp to collect on the way back from Souls-R-Us.

T h e S u m m a r y.
Would I recommend this guitar? Very much so but don't as yet expect perfection.
If it was stolen would I replace? It wont get stolen as its not out of my hands long enough and when it is I'm sat looking at it.
How does it sound? I don't know, I've had nothing like it to compare. mines like a P90 with a Single on top that drives like a humbucker??? 'Tis Witchcraft.
How does it feel? Like a Telecaster that weighs as much as a Les Paul but balanced.
Would I change anything? Maybe once I replace a few minor bits & void the warranty the neck will get swapped for an amber Strat type but that's a personal thing.
Will I use Thomann again? Of course, but maybe not on brand new product.
Anything else? Yes. Around 1967 a quite large USA company made a mod to a Telecaster, it was pre-thinline, it was known as the Smuggler. Take off the pickguard. This has to effect the sound in a + way?

In a nutshell, my guitar has faults. Yours may not. Whatever, it?s worth it. We buy for sound. Buy this guitar.
The model it's based on when translated sums up this guitar perfectly.

Firstly a word about Thoman's service which is very good. The packaging and attention to the safe delivery is top league. Delivery within their stated parameters.

TE 90 FLT
First to say that I've been a guitarist (after a fashion) since the late 1950's at which time it was hard to get a budget guitar that was even playable. I am also a long term amateur luthier being used to setting up guitars and getting around problems posed with poor necks and fretwork.

First impression is this instrument aesthetically ticks all the boxes. No flaws in the finish, no chips or dinks, really looks the part. Some of the components expectedly have a budget feel, the worst being the string trees, which will soon be replaced . The pickguard is perfectly acceptable but I have glued a stiffener to the rear surface as it was audibly vibrating, due no doubt to the weight relief chamber it covers. The neck is smooth to the hand, but some fret ends will need work with a file. The neck appears straight and required no more than a quarter turn on the truss rod to set the relief. I can find no high spots in the fretwork anywhere which is remarkable at this price point, but the fret surfaces need a good polish to make bending smooth . The nut was Ok but needed considerable re-cutting to get the string heights down to an appropriate level.

Sound......very quiet pups with a P90 influence in the tonality. Tone control offers little in graded tonal range (again not unexpected at this price) . Very acceptable.

All in all an extremely good guitar for the money. I cant give it 5 stars because of the slight shortcomings listed above but Harley Benton is a brand to be reckoned with if you're not a "label" snob

After 2+ years with the guitar I can say that it's an interesting instrument with some flaws that are kind of expected for the price.

Soundwise its very good considering the price. I even used it for studio recordings and live shows for the tele-ish feeling.

Quality though, is not that good and it has numerous flaws (mostly the frets and instability with temperature changes. Also electronics are quite bad) that make it unreliable for serious work. Its a 185 euro guitar after all.

The fact that it has a very good sound for the price, and can even be utilized for serious use in the studio makes it a really good choice for beginners, since the guitar can be relevant after the player has "outgrowned" it.

Another use case (and the way I use it) is as a practice/travel guitar when you don't want to take your higher end instrument(s) with you.

I had been researching and looking at videos for Thomas guitars. All the good reviews must mean something. I got the guitar and have to say that I'm extremely happy. I own a Fender American start and Gibson les Paul traditional plus. I wanted to get something that sounded different. The guitar sounds awesome. The pickups are keepers, they have a jangle and chimy tone while the bridge is still twangy with great attack. The guitar plays easy, no blemishes. I already prefer it it over my american start, I had it for two weeks now. The only thing I would have loved is two tone knobs, but the guitar rocks as it is. This guitar does not feel cheap, it feels like a quality instrument, yes I am talking about a quality that feels like a professional expensive instruments. I am so happy that i just purchased two more Harley Benton guitars this week.

This guitar is of very decent quality, especially considering the price. Unfortunately the guitar I received is different than the pictures shown at Thomann and had an issue with the bridge mounting.

The guitar I received has odd looking routing for the filtertron shaped pickups. The routes are almost square at the corners and do not follow the graceful corners of the very nice looking pickups. It looks as if this routing is for a different pickup altogether. This spoils the 'Cabronita' look i thought this guitar was going for.

The bridge is also different, it looks like a copy of a gotoh style unit and is very well done. When the hole was drilled for the grounding wire beneath the bridge there was some "punch out" or splintering of the wood around the drills exit under the bridge. The bridge was not able to sit flat on the body because of this. The way I received it, I was able to stick a thin fender pick under the treble side of the bridge.

Now that I have repaired the bridge, it is a good player. The pickups sound really good. The reverse headstock is just awful, lol but I knew that going in. The incorrect pickup routing makes it an ugly duckling and I'm just not that excited about it now.

I am an experienced guitar owner and I have played A LOT of guitars.Nuff said about this.

I bought this guitar for 2 reasons:
-It is a beauty.
-Wanted to check the quality of an HB guitar.

First of,if guitars like this,with that price,were being made in the 70's-80s' some well known brands would have closed their BIG factories...
Beginners and guitar freaks are extremely lucky with the guitar production nowdays.
Cheap guitars are extremely well built.Better than some ''rare'' guitars of the old times that worth some thousands.
Buying those guitars has a completely different reason.

The TE90 is a well built guitar and it is just unbelievable that you can have this thing in your collection for under 200 euros:

-Neck is awesome and easy to play.
-Finish 99% perfect(I never care about this though)
-Fret job is professional
-Tuners:They have a cheap feel but it comes as a surprise to realise that they hold the tuning extremely well.
-Pickups:Hmmm..The neck pick up is marvelous.
There is something that I don't like in the bridge pick up.
It's good for chords BUT when it comes to leads it's a little bit harsh.
2 screws were not straight and there is a slight difficulty in setting the desired height.
Too bad they can't be replaced by a normal size humbucker.
Sound wise they are vintage sounding.

The overall sound is something between a Tele and a LP.
NOT something to die for but with a character of it's own and good enough to enjoy playing.

Conclusion:
Don't hesitate to buy this guitar.
Life is short and (unless you have expensive rent) we need cheap,beautiful,quality products that make us happy.
I guess the price will be good for after sale too.
In case you want to add some cash for the rent...

I am an ex music shop owner and still a guitar tech. Yes I own a lot of guitars including the big American brands. I have unpacked, serviced and played many guitars. In all of my time in doing this I have never taken a guitar from its box and found it more instantly playable.. Still in basic tune around Eb, this guitar just wants to be played. I t has a slim/fast neck a 350mm/14inch fingerboard radius. Two great humbuckers, with just the right power and no Asian sounds. The hardware would only need changing if it broke. It all works well. Even the volume and Tone Pot were full size 25mm. The cavities are treated for EMF interference . Build quality is great.... The Value for money is so exaggerated for what you get. If this guitar fits in your wish list... Do it. Highly Recommended