Harley Benton CST-24T Paradise Flame

I normally wouldn't buy a guitar online without trying it first, but I couldn't resist this.. Been looking towards PRS guitars for the past year, and honestly can't afford one so this is my best shot at something near 'PRS like'. On a budget... Amazing but it comes with some flaws...

Right out of the box, the finish is astonishing. The guitar was well packed, for not having a case or gigbag, which is totally normal for this price point. The amount of clear coats on this thing is insane. Great binding and overall finish, vivid colours on the burst. Over actually really amazing.

Plays great out of the box. Only did some minor tweaking on the truss rod and bridge height to personal taste. Ok fretwork for the price and the neck plays great. It's a bit sticky because of the glossy finish, that's totally sandable.

The best part is the sound.. I'm surprised by the stock pickups (Roswell) and I was very eager to try out coil splitting for the first time. They came installed very low, almost under the pickup plates. Measured at around 8k, these pickups, along with the push pull coil splitting will bring you anywhere between crystal clean fender cleans and some heavier gibson humbucker tones.

Now comes the weird part.. The Wilkinson floating bridge. The trem arm came uninstalled (great), and it just wouldn't fit in the bridge. I'm aware of the Wilkinson mini hex screw that is installed on the back of the bridge to adjust the grip on the trem arm. It wasn't closed. It was the hole in the metal plate on top. I finally had to drill it half a millimeter wider. The whammy bar is hard to use, unlike my Stratocaster floating bridge which is basically the same system with springs. It stays better in tune though than on a Fender.

The electronics seem to have been poorly soldered, but overall clean. Luckily it's a case of too little solder, not like a total mess where the pots are all covered with too much solder.

The three way switch failed after a couple of days, there was bad contact with the bridge pickup. Resoldered but will replace it soon with something better as it doesn't seem to be of overall good quality.

Overall total bang for your buck!! You get a beautifully finished guitar with a great array of sounds. To me it's an everyday guitar and I bet it'll stay like that in the future!

I recently purchased a CST24T Harley Benton. I was extremely pleased with it except for a few minor things. I really don't like the telecaster knobs on this guitar - they are too tall to look good on an arch top. This cheapens the appearance of a good guitar - they should be using "speed knobs" and mine have already been changed (amber looks best!) The guitar I received did not have the Indian Rosewood fingerboard specified, but a smooth ebonol (man-made ebony substitute) fingerboard. As I actually prefer ebony fingerboards to most rosewood, I was prepared to accept this change to the advertized material. The frets were not perfect and needed some work to seat, level and polish them, but I guess this is to be expected at the price. There was one small wiring issue which meant I had to postpone the guitar's first gig - the earth wire from the tremolo claw had not been threaded through the tunnel from the trem cavity or connected to the electrics, which caused the inevitable loud buzz through my high gain Laney amp. After I took the guitar home and finished the factory's soldering work for them, I took the CST24T on another gig and it performed excellently all night (two and a half hours gig, non-stop, all on the new guitar.) My back-up instrument - a PRS SE EG with EMG pickups - stayed in its case all night! I doubt anyone will believe this, but it actually happened - a guitarist in the audience came up to me afterwards and said "those (big name American guitar company) guitars are really costly, but they're worth every penny, aren't they?" He honestly thought I had been playing a "real" USA-built guitar. I am now extremely pleased with the guitar and I have ordered the hollow-body version. I have owned many guitars with this appearance, some made in the USA, some by the USA company's Korean production and some made in Asia and marketed by a well-known wholesaler in the UK. This, in my opinion, has more of the flavour and quality feel of the USA guitars than do any of the others. The important things - the finish, the Wilkinson pickups, the operation of the volume and tone controls, the lovely smooth Wilkinson trem and (after the frets were smoothed and levelled) the action of my guitar are all excellent - no upgrades urgently needed. Very playable and so nice to look at I am still taking it out of it's case just to take another look. Owner satisfaction is so high it's easy to ignore how little I paid for it - there is an old saying (usually to justify paying a stupidly high price) "quality is remembered long after price is forgotten". With this guitar, that saying is still correct. One small suggestion (although the electrics are surprisingly versatile as the tone and volume actually WORK on this guitar) - if they used the four-wire Wilkinson humbuckers and a push-pull tone control for split-coil sounds it wouldn't cost much more to produce and would bring it even closer to the performance expected from this type of guitar. Surely this could be done and still keep the guitar incredibly affordable. Verdict - I'm very pleased. Thanks Thomann.

So many people have already said just how good this guitar is, it seems ridiculous to say more, but hell this thing is good. And it 'is' worth saying more, because people should know the quality is constant. Having said that, I think mine must be of older stock, that or the manufacturer has gone back to rosewood fret boards, because mine is definitely 'not' ebonol, it's rosewood. And, it came exceedingly dry and undernourished. Soon sorted with lemon oil though. The body of mine is one piece mahogany, no lamination and is finished in a translucent rose' red, as is the neck which is 5 piece affair with scarf joint, with a lovely shallow d profile, which I like. Again set up was questionable. I'm not that bothered as I do my own (as should everyone), but if you aren't up to this and don't know how, remember to factor in the price of a set up at your local guitar tech or dealership. My CST24-T came with super lite XL string on, my god are they light? 9 to 41 (41???). Anyway as usual who ever put the strings on didn't 'lock' them off (again) so slipping strings is what you get, and no chance on earth of using the trem without total loss of tuning. This is all incidental as the guitar is amazing after a good set up. And you do need to do one. The CST24-T is a time machine, yep! I lost 4 hours with it, you just can't put it down. I own a CS custom as well and was delighted that the CST24 is voiced so differently (you 'can' get those Santana tones). It has a much brighter voicing with its PU's than the custom, but it can still do lovely bluesy tones. The pots work well allowing for good tonal changes and the volume is smooth, allowing clean sounds from my valve amp to break and dirty up nicely as the volume is increased.
As for looks. Well...... Mine is a lovely honey mustard colour running out to a gorgeous rose' translucent red. I was worried I may have got an 'acidic' or 'toxic' looking one (I've seen a few on YouTube) but all is 'very' well it looks stunning. The only thing (aside from the set-up) I have done is change the chrome knobs for 'amber' speed knobs and swap out the 'black' toggle switch cap for cream to match the PU surrounds. And, once the lemon oil has fully dried in (about a week from now) I will be putting on my 'bird decal' fret markers to complete 'a certain look'. Thomann. Your a great company, keep doing what you do. All the best to your team, except that guy who does the set-ups. I saw him on Rob Chapman's YouTube vid. I'm learning German as fast as I can, I'll do his job and lock of the strings properly :)) (only joking) (Or am I)

First, the bottom line—the Harley Benton CST-24T is simply an awesome instrument. For the price, you cannot find a comparable guitar on the planet. Period.

That is a bold statement, but it is true. Let me explain.

First, it is a beauty. It is a PRS SE-style guitar, but with its own looks.

Second, the fit and finish are stunning. It isn’t just made from “Mahogany” (there are many lesser-quality woods lumped into the general category of Mahogany) the body and neck are made from the Swietenia Meliaceae species of Mahogany, also known as Honduran Mahogany. This is the original and highest quality of Mahogany used for guitars. This is what is used by the finest guitars builders around the world. It provides a resonance and sustain that is unbeatable. The recesses around the neck give you easy access to all 24 frets for playing the higher registers. The flame maple top is well-figured and beautiful. The black flame version is awesome as well, but the paradise flame version better-suited my individual tastes. Not a scratch, chip, dent or blemish. Just a beautiful instrument.

The DLX machine heads are smooth, solid and hold tuning very well. The graphite nut is perfectly cut and slotted. And it has been shaped and finished so that is almost feels like it is part of the neck, with no overlap or hard edges—A key indicator of attention to detail. The Wilkinson WVPC tremolo unit consistently allows deep dive bombs and comes back to perfect tuning every time. The neck is a modern “C” shape and is effortless to play.

The fretboard is made from Jatoba wood, also known as Brazilian Cherry. This is very hard wood (2690 on the Janka hardness scale) and an outstanding material for a fretboard. It is actually slightly harder than Rosewood (2620 on the Janka hardness scale). Great playability and wears well.

I guess I have been the most impressed with the fret work on this model. Clearly, extra attention has been paid to this part of the guitar’s construction. There are 24 medium frets with smooth ends and absolutely no fret sprouts. Fret leveling and setup were spot on.

The Roswell pickups are awesome. Full, well rounded tone, and crystal clean tones. If you just HAVE to have other pickups, great. Go spend your money. They will cost more than this entire guitar costs, but if you must, you must. But I’m telling you, take this guitar as-is to play any gig and everyone will be impressed. Even the coil split tones are impressive. I love it.

Lastly, I can’t say enough about how well Thomann takes care of its customers. They set up every guitar before it is sent to you. It came out of the box with a low action, tremolo set, perfect neck relief and with spot-on intonation. AND the strings were loosened for shipping to take all the tension off the headstock. All you have to do is tune it and play. And Thomann has the best warranty on the planet. They take care of their customers and that means a lot to me.

Honestly, if you can find a new guitar with this level of quality for this kind of money ($235 shipped to my door) then buy it. But I bet you won’t. I live in America. But I buy my guitars from Thomann.

Out of the box the guitar looked stunning but the bridge saddles looked to be in a very high. I did expect to have to set this guitar up so I wasn't too perturbed. No sharp fret ends, the body is a single piece of mahogany which I was very surprised about, I was expecting 2 or 3 pieces glues together, so a pleasant surprise.

The setup is where the issues arose. The truss rod was loose so the neck had a good bow on it and the action was sky high and fret buzz and choking was a rendering the guitar unplayable as it was. I tightened the truss rod which improved things across the neck but there's still a light buzz. There is some uneveness with the frets which will need to be addressed at some point. I think there may be a slight dip in the neck where the truss rod ends, but the neck will probably take a couple of days to settle given the state that it was in when it arrived.
But on to the main issue with this guitar, and that's the bridge. The saddles need to be raised so high that they are well proud of the trem body, this not only looks strange it is extremely uncomfortable to play as the saddles are square with a sharp corner, it's actually unplayable. I think filing the corner off the low E saddle would help a lot, or swap them for rounded saddles or replace the bridge. Maybe the neck on my one is glued at a bad angle, but in the stock photos you can see the saddle height is high also (not as high as on my one). If I was buying this again I'd get the fixed bridge version.
The pickups sound OK, but I'll probably replace them if I get the neck/frets and bridge sorted so that the guitar is nice to play.

Update:

I've now leveled and dressed the frets and filed the corner of the E saddle so the corner is blunt. After a couple of months playing it I'm astonished every time I pick it up how nice it is to play. It is super comfortable. I have a 1980's RG550 that I've owned since new and love to bits, but I find myself picking up the Harley Benton and leaving the Ibanez sitting in its stand. My reservations about the trem are now redundant. The neck has settled beautifully, it looks great and plays great. If you know how to level and dress frets or are willing to pay the £80 or so for someone to do it get one of these. Out of the box it was terrible, but once the issues are sorted it's outstanding. The fretboard does feel a bit weird/dry though, but I suspect once my finger oil/dirt embeds itself in it it will improve.

Although the paradise flame on my guitar is more "Heritage flame" than is shown in the Thomann website and other versions on YouTube I have got to be fond of it and in view of the positives which in the main go beyond five stars I can't knock any stars off in any category.
My guitar is not heavy. At 3.5 kilos it is lighter than my latest st62 at 3.7. I think that a lot of the criticisms of this guitar come from comparisons with PRS guitars. Obviously it is not as good as a USA PRS. Years ago I had a USA custom 22 and that was even lighter than this cst24. I have played several PRS se guitars and they all played like many Korean guitars. They tend to have a smaller distance between E and E at the nut so the strings sort of run down the middle of the neck. This guitar is closer to a USA PRS in that respect. My PRS had a wide fat neck which I prefer whereas this is shallower than that; much more of a speed neck. However, my neck on this guitar does not have a scarf joint neck. Obviously USA PRS don' t either but other cst24 that I have seen on YouTube definitely do. My cst24 has a central piece of slightly darker mahogany that runs the length of the whole neck down the centre it is very rigid especially bearing in mind the slimmish neck. Either side are two lighter pieces again continuous without scarf joint. In my opinion this is better than the Gibson one piece neck system.
I have set the vibrato to float and its fine. You can't lift up much but it does warbles and normal vibrato as it should.
The pickups are good. The tone cap is 47 nf which is a compromise so that the coil split sound is not too bright but I intend to swap it to either 22nf or maybe 30 ish as this will tame the slightly muddy neck pickup on high gain settings.
That's it really, it handles like very comfortable strat but much faster with much better access to the (24) frets and with a blistering humbucker sound especially on the bridge pickup. The neck looks and feels classy and the fretwork is faultless. The transparent grain on the back of the body is PRS class.
Maybe I have been lucky but I have ordered a black flame P90 cst24 which I hope arrives before brexit - a bit of an optimistic hope in view of the latest covid border holdups but fingers crossed!

This was a major supprise when I got it. I couldn't believe how incredible it looked if I would have paid triple I still wouldn't for some other brand I wouldn't have got a better looking guitar. the sound is awesome everything works excellent and it was in tune when I received it and it only took 6 days to the states that being said I would have received it sooner if I had known about somethings they should let you know about in advance like when ordering from abroad your bank will most likely flag it as fraud unless you let them know in advance that's the first thing. the other was I was going to get an thoman amp also but after a few days I got another email that they couldn't send it to the usa due to it being a 220 and not 110 as we use here in the states it would be a lot smother process if they would state these couple of things if that had been the case I would have revcieve my shipment at least a week sooner. That being said though the coustomer service was excellent and as soon as I was informed and the bank thing straightend out it was shipped out emediatly. I HAVE TO SAY ONE THING ABOUT THE REVIEWS THAT NIT PICK ABOUT THE ABS0LUTLY MINOR IMPERFECTIONS WHAT THE HELL GUYS ITS A 200 DOLLAR GUITAR THAT YOU COULDNT GET CLOSE TO WITH A $1000 TO GET ALL THE EXTRAS. I REALLY HAD TO LOOK SUPER HARD TO FIND ANY AND THEY WERE SO MINOR NO ONE COULD SEE THEM FROM A FOOT AND A HALF AWAY THE ONLY THING I MIGHT FALT ON THIS GUITAR ARE THE TUNERS THEY WORK FINE BUT COULD BE SMOOTHER AND THE PICKUPS ARE JUST A LITTLE DARK SOUNDING BUT NOTHING A LITTLE EQ ING WONT TAKE CARE OF OVERALL GREAT GUITAR.((((( HOW ABOUT MAKING ONE IN A PURPLETHT WOULD BE AWSOME I THINK ))))

Let me start with a bit of context. I started playing guitar at age 10 and did so nearly every day until I went away to college. In college I sold my Les Paul, Strat, and Marshall half stack for beer money and haven't played much in the 20+ years since. Having just had knee surgery, I have gotten back into playing and I purchased this model along with the Harley Benton SC-550 Plus EMG FTF which is a Les Paul replica. I would characterize my play as more towards a lead style and I enjoy playing anything from SRV blues to Metallica and Maiden. Having grown up with a Les Paul and Marshall half stack, that is the tone profile that I utterly crave and default to.

With that said, I bought this model for the times that I need 24 frets and a whammy bar. This thing definitely checks the box for that. I also was hoping to be able to get in the ball park of a SRV/John Mayer single pickup strat tone profile. Despite the fact that this does have the coil split, this hope was a little ambitious; I can maybe get in the neighborhood, but not on the same street.

In terms of being very nitpicky, I do have about 3-4 minor issues with the actual craftmanship of the guitar and one major thing (which actually is a pretty easy fix.)

The major issue is that the nut on the guitar I received is a trainwreck. It's significantly slanted and is so high on the lower strings that it actually bends roughly 1/4 of a note if the string is fully pressed against the fret board. With that said, it's not so awful that it's not playable; it takes a ton of pressure to get it all the way down. Also, nuts are a pretty easy fix for a guitar repair shop, though, and I'm probably just going to tackle this myself. The minor issues are all preferential, so I won't go into depth on any of them. The pickups are a bit dull. The input jack is difficult to keep tight. I definitely would prefer locking tune pegs. All in all, I expect that I'm going to end up putting another $250-300 into it to get it to the point where I've got the most out of this thing (new pickups, new nut, locking tuners).

Let's talk positives. The neck and fret work are incredible. It's a slim neck that plays fast as hell and feels incredible in my hands. I wouldn't say that it is exceptional at any single tone, but it is quite versatile. Its also an absolutely GORGEOUS instrument.

As mentioned, I'm likely going to end up puting as much into this as I bought it for. Even so, it's still a steal. I would say that this guy is ideal for someone who is looking for a BEAUTIFUL looking guitar that has a lot of versatility but is on a budget and doesn't mind spending more money on it down the road to get it to it's maximum playability. As someone who bought 2 HB's I would say that if you aren't interested in spending more money down the road, then look into a model that is another $100 or so. The SC-550 Plus I purchased was an extra $100 and it needs no adjustments.

All in all, I'm absolutely giddy with the purchase of this guitar. I knew coming in that I would probably have to toss another $200-300 into it to get it to the way that I like it, but even then it's still a fantastic bargain and it looks and sounds great. Very very happy!