Harley Benton BigTone Trem Vintage Orange

I bought this mainly for writing melodies and chord progressions while unplugged. But since I am firstly an acoustic guitar player I also found this to be ergonomically more convenient for me than les pauls or strats. It is bigger but it sits better. I'm also used to rather heavy gauge strings in my acoustic playing so this felt home in that respect too. But, sad to say, this did not stand the test of time at all. It does not stay in tune and the jackhole is unstable: if not tightened regurarly, it may fall into the body of the quitar. What a pity, I really liked this guitar, but as such it is practically useless.

The guitar is beautifully finished and the fret ends are reasonably smooth - no problem there. The setup wasn't to my taste, though. The action was too high and the strings were too thick. I also noticed after removing the strings, that the frets were not properly levelled, but that is what I expected for this low price. So, I levelled the frets, changed the strings to 10 - 46 flatwound and set the guitar up to my taste. And as I changed the strings I changed them to go OVER the front bar of the vibrato tailpiece, not under. Now the guitar feels almost perfect. The acoustic sound is quite usable and strong, and the pickup sound is nice, too, but since I didn't have this kind of guitar before, I have nothing to compare it to. Overall, I think the sound is somewhere between LP humbucker and strat single coil. It stays in tune surprisingly well, at least with moderate vibrato usage. Conclusion: If you are willing to do some setup work with this guitar and know what you are doing, you will get a decent guitar with a very low price tag. If you expect perfect guitar out of the box - it might not be for you.