Harley Benton RB-600BK Classic Series

FYI, the guitar cost me US $360 total, delivered to Arizona, w/gig bag. About the same as a high end Fender Squier from Guitar Center - so inexpensive, but not cheap.

For starters, the guitar arrived essentially unplayable. All of the frets had needle sharp sprouts, and the neck was significantly up-bowed. The strings were D'Addarios, but they felt sticky and grimy, and the action was set very high. The fretboard was also dirty. The tuners were very cheaply made. Nowhere close to the quality on most Squiers. Finally, one corner of the pickguard was popping up.

So why 5 stars? First off, because I know how to fix these things myself. I sanded down the fret sprouts, cleaned and oiled the fretboard, adjusted the truss rod, mounted a set of Wilkinson/Jin-Ho locking tuners, screwed down the pickguard and put on fresh D'Addario strings.

I now have a rather amazing and unique guitar. The fit, finish and overall look is great. The short scale neck is slim and fast. The bridge is a little tricky to adjust, but it works well enough, and I actually like the little cover over it. I suspected the neck would be unstable, but I was wrong. After the major adjustment the truss rod has only required minor tweaks.

I've saved the best for last . . . this freakin' thing sounds amazing! No, no, no it does not sound like a Ric, but it sounds like nothing else I've ever played, and I definitely will NOT need to swap out the pickups. Oh, and the controls also perform well, giving me access to a range of tones that I really like, and that I wasn't expecting. Fantastic fun!

In conclusion, an excellent purchase if you understand what you're getting. I expect you would pay at least US $100 for the set up work if you don't do it yourself. Add another $50 or so for the tuners and strings. Beginners with no experience of these things will likely be disappointed. Oh, and this will be my last Harley Benton unless and until Thomann sets up distribution and return facilities here in the US. I hope some of you find this helpful!

I own 3 other Harley Benton guitars: CST-24, XT-22 and TE-70RW deluxe. All of these 3 guitars are superb value for money and surprisingly high quality fit, finish, playability and tone.

I was therefore slightly disappointed with the RB-600BK. There are no obviously major flaws with it, but overall it's not of the same high standard as my other Harley Benton guitars. The tuning machines are wobbly and have quite a lot of slack. The nut was cut a bit too high making intonation and action adjustment difficult. The fretboard is rough and very dry. The frets were a bit scratched and corroded. The pickups were quite microphonic, especially the bridge pickup which squeals at gig volume. The bridge saddles have evidence of corrosion on them. The bridge was not mounted flush or level. The inside of the body behind the F hole is splattered with glue and paint. One of the knobs broke off when I pulled it to take a look at the pots.

I was able to address these issues, and have now got the guitar up to a reasonable playing standard, but based on my experience, I would pass on this particular Harley Benton model. I do own a genuine Rickenbacker among my other guitars, and I appreciate that the HB model is only 1/10th of the price of the comparable USA made Ricky, but you'd struggle with this guitar unless you have some basic luthier skills required to get it up to the necessary standard for playability.

Visually it has a great vibe, with it's beautifully designed retro body, vintage style binding and a head stock shape that doesn't resemble a boat paddle, I can say honestly I prefer the look of the RB600 over the brand that influenced it's conception.

I like the plain basic dot inlays, the unvarnished finger board and the traditional sound hole shape... mine does have a touch of black overspray inside but so what, hardly noticeable!

My RB600 was mostly in tune and playable straight out the box, all I did was lower the strings a little bit to get my preferred low action, tune it up and once plugged in, I raised the pickups a bit on the high strings to get my preferred balance. The intonation itself was perfect, the tuners work just fine and it holds it's tune well. The frets were all level with no sharp edges, all playable. I'm happy with the shorter scale length, the neck is quite narrow and I find it really comfortable to play. The paint finish was also fab, no faults at all and I've got to say, it just looks so good!
I'm not a fan of pretzel tail pieces but this one is totally fine, far more pleasing than ones that try to imitate that famous trademarked "R", after all I think this guitar stands on it's own merit and the proud Harley Benton logo asserts that is exactly what you're buying, not a cheap copy of something more expensive, but a guitar with a distinctive vibe.

Unplugged it sounds good acoustically, great for late night noodling without waking people up, it's not as loud as a full hollow body Casino.

Using a Harley Benton Tube15 Amp and an ACtone pedal (identical to the Harley Benton version), it's easy to dial in vintage tones. The pickups are Artec mini humbuckers. They have a vintage Filter’Tron look and the flat chromed metal mounting rings sets them off. I'd say they sound somewhere between P90s on an Epi Casino, and a bit dark like on a Telecaster. It definitely has it's own voice and a good range of sounds, and yes one can get sounds like the brand that inspired it.

After all that praise for what is a modestly priced instrument, let's get a gripe out the way... What were people thinking when they put the "ce" compliant label resplendent with a crossed out wheelie-bin logo to go on the back of the headstock printed directly on the paintwork and UNDER the varnish instead just using a removable sticker??? This guitar doesn't deserve that, so I took a black sharpie and that "wheelie bin" symbol is now gone for good! It's great value, and I'm a very happy customer!

Do not expect anything extraordinary from this guitar (except for its look of course). However it is quite good for its price. The main advantage of it are its classic rick-like look and weight. In terms of tone it is quite universal with satisfactory clean tone and well sounding distorted. As for disadvantages: a weird construction of bridge - be careful while replacing strings, do not remove all strings at once, otherwise you may spend hours to discover how the bridge was originally set. The string tension is the only thing to hold it in its proper place (as far as I know it's a feature of original rick-o-matics). The quality of its assembly isn't immaculate but satisfactory hence it is better to do some adjustments (strings' and pickup height) after purchasing

It’s perfect fun guitar for all levels of ability. Beginners will like it, as played acoustic it’s loud enough to play in front of the television while watching video guitar lessons. Quiet enough so you don’t annoy or wake others at night. It has medium jumbo frets so it’s easier to form chords than guitars with the standard frets. It’s light weight and small.

Some problems that I had to fix:
I think quality control were asleep when they made my bridge, hopefully this was a one off and yours will be better.
All six saddle bolt holes through the bridge body were drilled out too large on both sides, so the saddle bolts and saddles were all over the place. That problem was sorted by buying a new Guyker bridge, and just like the bridge that came with the guitar, the saddles were fitted the wrong way around. The string slots were facing inward, making the string spacing a narrow 48mm. Spin those saddles around, and the string slots will be 50mm to match the bridge pickup. Easily sorted.

The other annoyance is some scratchy frets, but run a fret rubber over the frets and all’s good.

I did take a chance on buying this as it’s advertised as having a 42mm neck width at the nut.
But a nice surprise to find it’s 42.8mm wide, so not bad if like me you have sausage fingers.
But for sausage fingers my Fender Telecaster American performer with it’s 43mm nut width and jumbo frets wins hands down, no contest.

The action at the first fret is good, and was playable straight out of the box.
I haven’t looked but no doubt the frets are not level, and when I have time I’ll set it up properly. Don’t expect any guitar you buy to be properly set up either new or second hand no matter what the price or make.

Two wire pickups: Bridge 8.57k - Neck 8.94k

I have fitted new locking tuners, and I’m going to mod the tone controls with series - parallel & out of phase.

Take a look on Youtube for this guitar, it seems to have a large following.
Three years in and this guys playing like a diva.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcVswTD8m8w

We All Know that Pickups, Strings Machine Heads Knobs ETC. Can be improved so Go And Spend 3 Grand Then. and there will be something you don't like on that one either. Trust me I know , That's the way Guitars are we are all different people with different Tastes in things. some people like low action others High, some people like a chunky neck, others don't, All im saying is for the money guys you cant beat it. If you have a few skills in setting a guitar up then theres no problem ive been playing guitar for 40 years I Bought this for Home use Only In My Studio and was very impressed. Straight out of the box the Action was very good, But I did tweak it a little as I like really Low Action. Id like to see a Smaller Neck some Day on these Guitars about a 40mm Nut with a Softer C Shape profile ( That's just my preference ) The Quality of the build of the guitar was Insanely Fantastic Overall for me Just Fantastic for the money

..Not better, but it is quite easily on par with it. Mine arrived from Germany to California within a week shipped UPS. No major issues with transport: though the RickOmatic was slightly askew, so a little adjustment there was required: There was some buzzing going on with the 6th string, and that cured the issue straightaway. No intonation issues at all to speak of. The neck is perfectly straight without any need of trussed adjustment. The frets are buttery smooth--unlike the sprout issues found in some other reviews. No major visual spots to be seen inside the f hole...it looks like there is some extra lacquer in there, though. Tuners are WAY better than I imagined!! Day one: I beat the crap out of it with a few early Beatles, and it stayed in tune 100% perfectly! The only thing that bugged me was some shrink-wrap under the filtertrons that I can't remove cleanly due to it being under the pickups support plate. That's just a minor visual issue anyway.

Straightaway, This guitar is a stunning value for the money...
For about 14% the cost of a 4K Ripoff-enbacker the Harley Benton RB 600BK is a major score. It looks stunning, The Lennon vibe is there. BTW: this guitar has no issues going through customs because it is not pretending to be an illegal. junky pirated copy.

Overall another quality guitar from Harley Benton.
Love the Rickenbacker vibe to it for sure
A few minor issues with fret buzz but nothing a quick set up can't fix.
That's the only reason this guitar didn't receive 5 stars in all categories.
Had a few dealings with Thomann customer service as I have had in the past as well, and once again, they prove that it's NOT just about making a sale. They actually care about their customers and making sure they are completely satisfied with the products they received.
Fantastic job to Harley Benton for a great guitar, and to Thomann for the amazing service!

I had watched a few review videos on YouTube and was expecting a few things: 1) paint in the f-hole, 2) finish imperfections and 3) general quality control issues. I opened the box and found absolutely none of these. It was playable out of the box: frets were great, action good, just a beautiful guitar.

I can't put it down. I've been playing early beatles songs for 3 hours now. I think I played Please Please Me about ten times.

The guitar sounds great and is easily playable. The only con I could think of is due to the nature of the guitar - it's a small scale and for a big guy like me it takes a bit of getting used to. I'm past that point and really digging this thing!