So i picked up the Harley Benton ST-Modern Plus MN HSS GMB recently and wanted to share my experience after having two different examples in hand.
First of all: visually this guitar is an absolute stunner. The Gun Metallic Blue finish looks fantastic in person and the overall spec sheet is honestly insane for the price. At around 350€, this thing is a complete feature monster.
The necks on both guitars also looked beautiful — both had a nice dark roast and slight flame figuring that gave them a much more premium look than I expected at this price point.
Before talking about the quality side:
I don’t have sound samples, but to my ears the guitar sounded very good. However, tone is subjective and build quality isn’t, so this review is mainly focused on the instrument quality and setup/fretwork.
Things I liked:
- The finish quality on both guitars was immaculate. No cosmetic flaws, no stripped screws, no loose input jack, and overall assembly felt surprisingly solid.
- Knobs and controls felt tidy and secure.
- Hardware installation overall was done well.
- The neck shaping feels great. The roasted flame maple neck with the smooth D profile was very comfortable for me.
- Nut was cut surprisingly well on both examples.
- The Babicz bridge is genuinely excellent. Super easy to adjust thanks to the separate adjustment + locking screw design, and overall one of the best modern trem bridges I’ve used in this price range, although palmmuting might take some adjusting.
- Tremolo stability was actually impressive. The guitar returned to pitch consistently after trem use.
- Roller string trees are a nice touch.
- Locking tuners held tuning well, although the rotational stiffness was inconsistent between tuners. Some felt very stiff while others turned looser/smoother.
- The first guitar had smooth fret ends and polished frets.
Minor personal complaint:
I’m not really a fan of push/pull knobs on Strat-style knobs. The coil split worked fine, but personally I would much rather see a dedicated mini switch instead.
Now the bad part:
I could not get the action low without issues. My target setup is usually around 1.6 mm on the low E and 1.4 mm on the high E, but both guitars developed fret buzz and especially a sitar-like effect on the G and B strings.
The first example had massive fret inconsistency issues across both lower and higher register frets. I checked it with a fret rocker and found multiple uneven frets all over the neck.
The second example was somewhat better, but still had some problematic frets causing buzzing. Even a 2.0 mm / 1.6 mm action setup didn’t work properly for me without issues.
To be fair:
- I do have a fairly heavy picking attack.
- Players with a lighter touch or slightly higher action may have no issues at all.
- I can only talk about the two guitars I personally received.
What also surprised me:
The first guitar had very smooth frets, while the second one had noticeably rough stainless steel frets. Stainless steel frets are great in theory, but only if the fretwork is done properly.(especially leveling)
Specs for anyone interested:
- American alder body
- Roasted Canadian flame maple neck
- Compound 12”-16” radius
- Stainless steel frets
- Tesla pickups
- Babicz FCH trem
- Glow in the dark side dots
- Graphite nut
- Locking tuners
Overall impression:
This guitar has amazing design ideas and premium features that you normally don’t see anywhere near this price point. For ~350€, Harley Benton really packed this thing with features.
That said, based on my experience, fretwork/QC consistency seems to be the weakest point. I honestly think this guitar could become an excellent instrument after a proper level, crown and polish job from a guitar tech/luthier — which, to be fair, is something many guitars in this price range (and sometimes above it) benefit from anyway.
If you get a good one out of the box, it could already be fantastic. If not, it might need some additional work to really reach its full potential.
Thank you for your time.
FYI: on the pictures, the foil still is on the pickguard, humbucker and backplate.
