Review of the Harley Benton TE-40 TBK Deluxe Series Electric guitar. Where to buy it?

I am a hobby guitar player, I consider myself to be advanced beginner/intermediate level player. That said, after looking at a lot of googled photos and online video reviews of this guitar, I decided to purchase it. I own several different guitars, and have played a lot more, and I got friends with some other guitars. I have it for three weeks now, and play it every day, happily 🙂

Once it arrived:
– the fretboard was very dry and had some white dust over it, strings were rusty. I removed the strings, and used conditioner on it, that really rejuvenated it, and it is quite beautiful ever since. I love the fretboard. It is redish colored, similar to pictures on thomann website. Note that certain videos and pictures online show a dark, black fretboard. This is not the case, it is redish and pau ferro I believe, and it looks, feels, and plays great! I thought I would dislike it in person, and considered darkening it, but I completely changed my mind once I held it in hands.
– Black finish, see through is minimal, like 3%, and I prefer it that way. So very much like in thomann pictures. Excellent quality for this price, no faults.
– knobs and switch are great, knobs are metal, gold color, heavy, feel good when you turn them. Switch is plastic, but ok.
– frets are great, no buzz, not sharp, good quality, feel good
– tuning machines are cheap, a little wobbly, ok, but they work fine. They hold tuning fine!
– Nut is plastic I think, not sure, but it is well made, not sharp, all strings are positioned properly
– Neck is satin, feels good, pretty. Straight.
-Bridge is adjustable, looks great, intonation is fine, action is great (at least for me)
– Sound is awesome. It has a strong character, especially on bridge pickup. I will not change the pickups. I mostly use fender frontman 25r amp. The pickups are cheap of course, so are electronics, but hey, it all works fine. There is a proverb in my country: "every rifle will be deadly in the right hands" 🙂 I have seen skill getting incredible music out of worst instruments. So be critical about the guitar, but also about yourself.
– when I changed strings, the golden holders on the back of the body fell out. That is a minor quality issue, since I put them right back, and once I placed new set of strings, they stayed in place correctly. You can see those in the pictures.
-Guitar looks stunning overall!
– It plays great, the feel is real nice and quite different then rosewood bullet squire fretboard I got, or roasted maple lacquered fretboard on my jet js450, but i like it a lot. Bending is normal, playing is lovely, the wood just feels great, the conditioner really did wonders.

For this price, depending on where you live, you might find similar or slightly better quality new guitar, but probably not. This beautiful? No way. Telecaster like this one for the price? No way. I also considered buying used guitar for my money, but quickly gave up after a few dirty fretboards, broken parts, bent necks etc.
Conclusion:
-if you want to play a single guitar, one and only, gather 1000e+ and buy something amazing, skip this one and any other cheaper guitar.
-If you want a great budget guitar, with minor drawbacks in quality (most important stuff is of solid quality imo) get this guitar! I played and had several similarly priced and some more expensive guitars and when I compare them to this one, it holds its ground solid.
-If you want another guitar for a collection – go get it!
-if you like pretty things haha

Hope this helps to make a choice.
All best, kindest regards.

I ended up with a small and unexpected lump of money burning a hole in my pocket, so I thought I’d treat myself. I’ve bought guitars before and ended up chasing a deal and loosing sight of the guitar I actually wanted, ultimately buying the one I didn’t want because it was shiny and came with discount. This time, I wanted to read the reviews, make an informed decision, stick to it, and buy the guitar I wanted.

I want to share with you my buying experience, without the ‘honeymoon period’ of a new guitar fogging up the context. I feel some reviews are composed by starry eyed people who want to share the enthusiasm they feel for thier new guitar with you. That’s not a bad thing, but I’ll make an effort to be as objective as I can to help you make your own decision.

I’ll start by trying to help manage your expectations (always excellent Thomann customer service and support aside). This is a guitar for around £100, don’t forget.

Guitars at this end of the market have flaws and imperfections. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be at this end of the market. Don’t get me wrong, this is nicely finished for the price, but there are some imperfections. None of them are obvious and you really have to look for them, but all of the things you touch are great. The neck is nice and smooth, but offers enough resistance to give your palm good feedback. It’s quite thick and chunky. That could be an issue for small hands, but I quite like it. The frets are good. No rough edges, no sharp points. It’s not perfect, but it cost around £100. If you want hand luthiered quality, there’s no other option but to spend 10 times this amount. The body is quite heavy and thick, but not overly so. The body is also well contoured and very conformable. It’s very easy to pick up and play. Good marks for design (even if it’s heavily inspired by another, more famous guitar manufacturer).

Despite what you might read, guitars do not come set up out of the box. Not at this price, anyway. They might come roughly correct, but you still tune it up before you play it, don’t you? I mean, it’s a guitar. It’s not going to be strung like a hen house, is it? You will have to make alterations to some settings to taylor it to your taste and to get the intonation exactly right. Such set up changes are usually quite simple, so try it for yourself and you’ll be very pleased that you did. My guitar was nearly there, but not quite. That’s normal at this price, so to expect otherwise is not fair on Thomann.

Plugging it in to my Peavey Envoy 110, I am quite impressed. This sounds great – not just for the price, but great full stop. Very versatile. Good clean tone. From bright and shiny to muddy and dark, these pick ups hold their own. On the lead channel, they cope well too. Strong rocky tones and punchy enough to produce some sinister metal sounds. To make a comparison, it’s quite like my LTD Viper. A guitar that cost three times the amount of this! The pots feel nice and weighted. My only criticism is that the selector switch feels a little cheap, but who cares? It still works! Anyway, I’ve read that these pick ups will accept a 5 way switch, so upgrade it if it bothers you.

All in all, this a great little guitar. If the finish was slightly better (and it had Squire/fender on the headstock), you’d play more than double the price and be okay with it. It’s that good. There are a few rough edges, and the ‘gold’ hardware will probably look ‘bronze’ by Christmas, but don’t let that spoil things. Good enough for studio work, better at being a quality front room guitar that gets passed around on social gatherings, but stays in tune when all is quiet.

Very usable, very cheap and very good. If you want a great value guitar, buy this and have enough money left over to tell your friends about it in the pub afterwards. If you want a Fender, buy a Fender and turn the heating down.

EDIT :

OK, so, a year or so on, I might have got a little carried away describing the sounds this guitar makes. The pick-ups have become somewhat frustrating. Very high output and kind of flat sounding. Not too bad, but not nearly as good as my LTD Viper, as claimed earlier. They’re are two different animals, so comparison is unfair.

It is lasting well, though. Still plays well and looks good. The hardware doesn’t look as bright as it once did, but what do you expect for £100? No complaints at all.

I still tell people about this guitar because I’m still amazed that you can buy a guitar this good for the price. It’s simply unbelievable.

Things have moved on since the 1990’s cheap guitar…