Harley Benton ST-Modern Plus HSS

[Securb]

Not sure how they can put these guitars on the market for $360. Roasted Maple necks, locking tuners, Babicz bridges, compound radius fretboards, and a lot of other nice adornments.

 

[GuitarDoc]

Yeah, just the hardware on it would cost that much. It really amazes me how some really good guitars can sell for so little these days.

 

[Securb]

What blows my mind is if this same guitar was put out by Fender with a Fender logo, you could not keep them on the shelves at that price.

 

[Aceman]

Not sure how they can put these guitars on the market for $360. Roasted Maple necks, locking tuners, Babicz bridges, compound radius fretboards, and a lot of other nice adornments.

Well, off hand I'd say competitive sourcing, low cost labor, high automation, large volume, low margins. I have always said a guitar costs $300 total to build, Mexican Strat to Les Paul Custom. Cheaper guitars cost less...

But I have played a bunch of HB's and every one of them was a solid guitar and serious player.

 

[Aceman]

What blows my mind is if this same guitar was put out by Fender with a Fender logo, you could not keep them on the shelves at that price.

I have said this a couple of times to clients, and their greed kills them every time. "If you drop the price by X, you will sell more units than you can make and get 10x revenue for a 10% price reduction." And then sales makes up BS and ignores it.

How many Les Pauls would be on wall at $1500? Not nearly as many.

 

[Mincer]

I wish they had a stable distributor here in the USA. What a deal. Miles better than a similarly-priced instrument when I was a teen.

 

[larryguitar]

I wish they had a stable distributor here in the USA. What a deal. Miles better than a similarly-priced instrument when I was a teen.

They have a Reverb shop where they ship directly from the US, with reasonable shipping and no customs fees.https://reverb.com/shop/harleybentonofficial

Larry

 

[Mincer]

They have a Reverb shop where they ship directly from the US, with reasonable shipping and no customs fees.https://reverb.com/shop/harleybentonofficial

Larry

Oh didn't know that...thanks!

 

[Securb]

Wow they really have a great resale value also

https://reverb.com/item/64201397-cu...9.PYUjNFsYjuqWmQvyUq2ZF_9Ec-KuJt_Jl_5YoTlUJ5c

 

[Masta' C]

Damn, if only I liked regular Strats. Can't even get a stainless refret in the U.S. for this price! Ugh...

Every HB I've tried has been good to very good in terms of build quality and playability. Perfect starter guitar or modding platform

 

[beaubrummels]

And if that price is too high, you can get a kit for half that. Free shipping.

Think I'll skip the $1400 bolt-on SG.

 

[Phantasmagoria]

HB are pretty rare to come by here as well..or I'd be all over a lot of those models. Still The Aria Fullerton Pro I Bought last year is similarly spec'd and priced (in fact about $50 cheaper new) w/ a SS Wilkinson Strat bridge instead of the Babicz. Looks great & plays great too. A lot of the newer entry-level stuff is sporting hardware that would normally be found only on $500-700 guitars in recent years.

Though my fave cheapie HSS that I got recently is my GIO. Pretty average feature-wise on paper, but what a sweet player! Mojo....that's what matters in the end :bigthumb:

 

[Supernautilus]

I love HB. I have two of their basses and one electric guitar. Good stuff. They come out with new models regularly too so I'm always keeping an eye on them.