Review of the Harley Benton Fusion-II HH Roasted SSP Electric guitar. Where to buy it?

Featurewise and lookwise this guitar should be perfect for me. I really fell in love with the sparkle finish. I was planning to change the pickups from the beginning since my experience with Roswell pickups (in other HB’s) isn’t good. But unfortunately the guitar is just really badly made and I sent it back.

But let’s start positive.

Positives:
1. The neck feels awesome! It’s so smooth! I’m sold on the baked/roasted maple thing.
2. In the beginning I had to adjust and get used to the ‘slippyness’ of the frets (stainless steel is much smoother than nickel), but they grew on me. I think all my new guitars from now on should include stainless steel frets. Also I wear pretty quickly through the frets on my other guitars and that will be less of a problem with stainless frets.
3. The tremolo is actually really good. No really. I have a lot of strats (Jap, MIM, USA) and none of their tremolo bridges stay as well in tune as this tremolo.
4. Coil split, metal knobs, locking tuners etc. really sell this guitar as a feature rich package. Really, for this money it should be a awesome guitar indeed. Oh and also I’m really a fan of the thrust-rod adjustment gear at the base of the neck. Some of my other guitars have this and it rocks.

But I just can’t enjoy playing it at all. And here is why (negatives):
1. The string action is ridiculously high. Like really really high. Even with the bridge on the lowest setting its action is extremely high. I own 18 guitars and none of them come even close to this guitar in terms of minimum string action. My guess is that they made the neck part that is screwed in the neck joint too thin. I can only hope that this issue only exists on my version of this guitar.
2. The frets aren’t leveled which means a lot of string buzz on practically every neck adjustment position, except for extreme string action height settings.
3. I think the nut isn’t cut correctly, but I’m not sure about this.
4. The pickups sound truly awful. Normally I’m all for ‘pickups is a matter of choice’, but in this case I want to make a exception. They sound like cheap muddy (especially the neck) humbuckers. To be fair, split they are not even that bad compared to some other cheapo humbuckers.
5. The finish is awful as well. All over the body there is some weird yellowish stuff underneath the clear coat finish. Especially on the corners of the top. It’s not extremely visible, so I don’t think people watching me playing will notice the weird yellow coloring, but I see it all the time and that bothers me. Also the fretboard has some weird black/dark stains on it that make it look ugly/dirty.

All in all I had to unfortunately part with this guitar. For this money you can’t expect PRS level quality control, I am fully aware of that. And if it played at least good I probably would have kept it despite the finish problems (I would have changed the pickups/electronics though). But the total package really is a bad deal. Even if they would sell this for 200 euro less, it would have been a bad deal for me. The guitar just doesn’t play right and sucks the joy out of me playing the guitar.

Let’s hope this was some faulty one and other people have better luck with it!

Okay, let me start by saying: I am not a professional guitarist, but I have been playing for 15 years and have done hundreds of church, wedding, birthday, festival and pub & club gigs as part of a band.

When I received the guitar, I was shocked. My parcel was soaked with rain (probably at our customs). I unboxed the guitar and the strings were rusted. I changed the strings and did a quick setup of the truss rod, bridge and pickup height. I cannot comment on the out-of-box setup since I did not play the guitar straight out of the box. Luckily the guitar had no damage to it.

Pros:
Beautiful finish (body and neck)
Comfortable neck
Superbly finished s/s fret wires
Excellent value for money
Versatile pickups (great cleans and dirty sound)
Good quality hardware

Cons:
Black side dot markers is difficult to see in bad illumination

I know my way around the fretboard but I still use the markers in certain instances. I have since removed the black side dot markers and installed strontium aluminate (glow in the dark powder) side dot markers which works perfect in low light conditions.

The pickups are not too hot and I prefer it this way and do not plan on changing them out. They sound very good and are versatile. I don’t play metal but I can only assume that they are not high gain enough for metal.

I have for reference a 2011 American Standard Telecaster (60th Anniversary) and a 2014 American Standard Stratocaster (60th Anniversary) which are both great guitars.

From other reviews I am very grateful that I received one with a great feeling neck and in perfect condition after a bit of TLC. I don’t think the guitar can compete with the USA Fenders in terms of consistency when it comes to quality control. I do think that the guitar can compete in terms of quality of components and if the fit and finish is perfect (like mine), it certainly is punching in the same league as the USA Fenders. It just simply feels like a quality instrument.

I took a chance ordering and shipping it from Germany to South Africa and I am very happy with the result. I realise now that it could also have turned out very different!