Harley Benton DC-Junior Faded Cherry

I'd read the hype, the reviews, the forums and watched the vids and, after a lot of consideration I pulled the trigger!
I thought all the claims about perfect finish and setup were a little optimistic but no. The finish was flawless, although being a matt finish, it was a little grainy in places. Nothing big enough to be seen but I could feel the odd speck under my fingers, now mostly disappeared after a few days playing. Setup was almost spot-on, just a slight sharpness on two strings but not enough to worry about until I do a string change and the action was just right. I haven't measured it yet but it plays very nicely! I usually play 9's and this guitar comes strung with 10's, but they suit it down to the ground so I may keep them.
The Roswell P90 pickup is a revelation. There are a huge range of tones available and the sounds I'm getting from a modified Fender Champion 600 range from very sweet and clean to dark and gnarly at the turn of a knob. I haven't opened it up, either sonically or physically so I can't speak for its performance through a larger amp or comment on pot and capacitor values but they seem very well matched.
Fit and finish is exceptional for the price with a nice thick pickguard, well finished frets, good tuners and a general air of quality.
Even though this guitar is a fantastic buy I do have some gripes. There are some sharp edges on the bridge which are a bit uncomfortable when hand muting. Similarly the fretboard side of the nut can dig in to your hand during certain open chords. Both of these are small niggles which can be easily sorted though and don't really detract from what is an excellent guitar at any price.

Together with my sc450 plus this is the second (out of 4) HB to be almost perfect out of the box. Almost because as with all guitars below a certain price point, the nut needed a little lowering ...it still played fine with no sharp notes when fretting the first few frets but its just nicer to play with a little lower action at the nut....possibly personal preference. I was pleased to find that once i lowered the action i still had range left should i want to lower the bridge further, which was not the case with my SC yellow mustard that uses the same bridge. starting action was 2.1 and 1.6mm out of the box, tweaked it down to 1.8 and 1.4mm, electrics are just fine but if you want to get closer to a Leslie west mountain tone you might want to raise the pickup 2/3mm. volume control works great to alter the nature of the sound. High fret access is fantastic and surprisingly frets were really nice and polished ....even the strings had a new feel to them so left them on. I normally buff up the frets and change strings straight away but not with this guitar. Feels like this is a fairly recent manufacture and so had little shelf life. Overall, couldn't really ask for more...even at three time the price......now i'm curious about the FAT model .....

I decided to buy this guitar based on excellent reviews. Based on my experience with this guitar, I think most of those reviews are biased because of the low price i.e. "it's great for the price".
I think guitars should be scored regardless of their price. In my opinion, an excellent guitar needs to have the following:
- Ability to set a really low action. That means around 1 mm on low E string and 1.5mm on high E.
- It should stay in tune
- It must sound great
- It has to have a good hardware

Looks are subjective, I won't comment that.

This guitar didn't satisfy some of those things out of the box. In particular, the nut was cut too high, making it really hard to play and impossible to set the action low. In addition, the quality of a nut wasn't great so the guitar had issues staying in tune. I fixed this by installing a high quality nut which solved the nut-side action and tuning issues.

While this improved playability significantly, I still wasn't able to get the action as low as I wanted, bends would choke and string were buzzing (with correct amount of neck relief). Guitar had quite a few high frets that had to be levelled. I could set the action really low after fret levelling.

The Roswell pickup is really great. Although a bit underwound at 7k, it sounds amazing and it gives the guitar almost a telecaster vibe with p90 growl. It sits way too low though from the strings so you'll have to buy a shim to raise it for about 3 mm. Otherwise it will sound dull and it will have a weak output.

The wrap around bridge does its job but it's somewhat uncomfortable. The saddles are a bit sharp and uncomfortable so I had to replace it. I thought it looked ugly too, but that's subjective.

When it comes to finish, I think Thomann web page is misleading. The guitar doesn't look anything like in the images on their web page. The images show a faded cherry guitar in a beautiful gloss finish, whereas the actual colour is a dull satin finish. It's not an open pore finish either as they list in the specs, so thumbs down for false advertising.

Overall, if you have luthier skills, you can make this guitar play as good as a guitar that costs much more. But if you don't, you will be underwhelmed and you have to spend quite a few $$$ on fretwork, nut replacement, pickup shims etc.

I've had this guitar sometime now so I've had time to work out the instruments pros and cons.

Service from Thomann was excellent as usual.
This is the best value for money of this style of guitar you'll find anywhere.
I like the woods used mine looks to be a three piece body and it's well matched timber, the neck joint is particularly well done having removed the pickguard just to have a look I was impressed how tidy the joint is.
I really like the satin finish and the neck which feels slightly bigger than epiphones 60s slim taper.
Tuning machines are quality Wilkinson vintage jobbies. Neck has a scarf joint and a volute so it will be strong.
The guitar is very light weight I like that and it rings like a bell unplugged, it's very loud even unplugged and I can feel the whole guitar vibrating when I strum it.
I personally really like the purple heart fretboard, it's very smooth and I love the colour, this might not be everyone's cup of tea but I like it.

Ok here's the cons although the pickup sounds great it's far too low and it needs shimming up to get closer to the strings. Roswell make a shim for this style of pickup and it should be supplied with the instrument. Once the pickup is in a better position it actually sounds very very good real vintage p90 tones.
My other con is the bridge, it's a good idea but to my eyes the radius isn't the same as the fretboard.
I'm finding that the further up the fret board I go the less sustain the instrument has I'm not sure why this is. Maybe it's just this style of guitar but I can't help but think the bridge is the culprit.
I've had an SG junior before and I can't recall having this problem.
I've given the frets a light sanding and polish and I've tried setting the instrument up at different heights but to no avail so the next step is to put an epiphone lightning bar tailpiece on it and see whether it improves things.
The nut was well cut however I like to sand mine down so the strings are just resting on the top and I got rid of the sharp edges on the corners.

All in all I'm not going to make a big deal of the problems but it would be nice if Thomann addressed the cons. I'm happy with the instrument and my experience with guitars is they all have their foibles doesn't how much you pay they are all different and I enjoy tinkering and learning about the instruments.
A less experienced player wouldn't spot the cons I've noticed.
Would I buy another? Yes I think I'd buy the Harley Benton DC60 junior if I was in the market for that style of guitar.
I'm still giving it four out of five because the timber and hardware are all very good quality and the workmanship is excellent. When you consider that Gibson's version of this guitar is £1100 this is a steal.
None of the components other than the bridge need upgrading.