Harley Benton JA-Baritone BK

After waiting a few months for this to arrive and frantically watching videos about it online, it finally arrived today!

I was worried about possible QC issues and/or electronic issues since rumors about HB guitars have been coming forward a bit more the last year or so (my personal experience with HB products has been only positive), however I am extremely excited to say that the neck and frets feel as smooth as my most expensive guitar, the stock pickups being house-brand sound surprisingly good.

Only minor points, if you can even call them that, are the plastic tuners (which personally do not really bother me for the price and feel sturdy enough), the glossy neck (this is personal preference and I had no issue running up and down the neck) and the fact that the fretboard does not seem to be oiled (which is a 5 minute job).

Overall, I cannot recommend this guitar enough to the baritone lover. I actually wanted it for low-tuned metal which it can absolutely do (with some extra gain and stuff) but nevertheless have caught myself being sunk into its expressive cleans, so I do think this guitar has a lot of possibilities and its p90 pickups have an interesting character. For 199 euros and these features I didn't even care to examine it for dings and scratches and so far I have seen none, plus I have not checked the intonation but this can also be easily remedied. Absolutely great instrument!

I'm going to start by saying I've never been so impressed by any instrument relative to its price tag. The build quality is great, the neck is fantastic, the bridge is solid and adjusts smoothly, the pickups are clear and punchy and the whole instrument looks like I paid five times as much. the frets could do with a tiny polish but I'd be pleased with the shaping and ends on a guitar costing far more. The pots are smooth and clean, and the tone control is probably the most useful I've ever had across its entire range.

I've brought the action down to 1.5mm bass side and 1mm treble, and there's not a hint of buzz anywhere, which is astonishing. I did have to put a bit of extra tension on the truss rod and discovered that it's already cranked to the max, which is worrying but hopefully something I won't have to touch further.

I haven't had any issues at all with microphonic pickups or grounding so I presume that was an early thing. The only things I would note are that the selector switch feels very notchy (even though it works perfectly) and the tuner heads don't inspire confidence, especially with this amount of tension. No problems as yet though.

Get one, but book time out because it's hard to put down.

This was a bit of a punt as I wanted to try a baritone but didn't want to spend big money. The guitar was back ordered and I nearly forgot about it until it arrived and, all in all, I was pleasantly surprised. Fit and finish is outstanding for a sub £200 guitar, no sharp fret ends, no dodgy paint and the neck is beautifully finished. Machine heads look cheap and cheerful but this thing just stays in tune regardless. Action is a little high but perfectly playable. Pickups are a bit raspy but otherwise sound OK and are not unpleasant (the middle position is rather nice). The guitar is very light but there is no neck dive whatsoever. Being a full scale baritone you can get some pretty good hybrid bass/six string vibes and it really makes you play in a very different way. I am really happy with this guitar and I literally cannot put it down, I'll change the strings for some Ernie Balls and may think about upgrading the pickups at some point but, for the money, this is a great guitar if you are looking at adding a baritone to your armoury without spending big bucks.

I thought this would be fun to pick up for the price, and I expected the usual with a new guitar: setup is funky, nut was cut too high to leave you room to lower, fret sprout, some uneven frets or notes to get choked out when you bend high...Pretty much the how my 2021 Epiphone Les Paul Prophecy came.

This guitar blew my expectations away! No fret sprout, no uneven frets that I can tell after a few hours on it, action is actually really good, and virtually NO cosmetic defects (one small ding about 2mm wide and 1mm tall, you really have to look for it). The neck is smooth, the frets don't stick out of the finger board at all, the pickups actually sound really good. I was anticipating replacing the pickups...but I might just leave them for now. I DO want to replace the plastic tuners with some locking metal ones that will feel better and be easier to work with, but this thing holds tune very well actually. Electronics are good and not scratchy and don't pop. The frets do need a once over with some steel wool, but that's perfectly okay.

You want this? Just get it! If there's a lead time that just means you'll get a nice surprise from yourself in the future. So glad I ordered this when I did and didn't let a lead time scare me away. Great job!

Here’s the nitty gritty: in a sound test, this guitar fooled colleagues. I re-recorded songs I had originally done with a custom Kiesel 7-string on this Harley Benton baritone, and no one could say with any certainty which recording was the $3,000 guitar and which was the $200 guitar. Do you know how absolutely insane that is?

Here are the notes broken down based on recording, and notes on the guitars:

Custom Kiesel 7-string: 26.5” scale, Fishman Fluence pickups. That’s the difference.
HB JA-Baritone BK: stock, tuned down to drop G#

Listener blind notes on the Kiesel recording:
- More clarity and shimmer in clean passages
- More note separation, slightly less “mud” in chords utilizing GBE strings.
- More fizzy midrange in heavy passages, not pleasing to ear

Listener blind notes on the HB Baritone recording:
- Cleans sounded a bit “flatter”
- Heavy passages had way more balls/grit/drive — overall listeners really liked the bite offered by the P90s
- More sustain — one song had guitars ring out at the end, and it was noted that the Baritone rang out for nearly two measures longer, roughly 6 bars in 4/4

That’s kind of it. I love how it feels and how it plays and how it sounds. The 30” scale takes some getting used to, and if you deal with hand/wrist pain already, this may not be the guitar for you. That being said. This is a $200 guitar that, in a blind test, competes with a $3000 custom guitar. I can give it no higher praise than that.

I will also note that playing down-tuned music *feels* better on the longer scale length. I actually tune it all the way down to F# now without needing to get thicker strings. Those wanting to tune down to E or Db will need to get thicker strings.

Whenever I want to put money into it I will likely get higher quality tuners. The only part of the guitar that feels “skimped” on is the tuners, in my opinion. Still, a 5-star instrument all around.

Took delivery of this a few weeks ago, treat myself.

Delivery: the JA was on back order so waited a couple of weeks, but landed on time with no problems.

Packaging:
Massive double walled cardboard for the main box, packaged with smaller boxes for stability, heavily stapled. Guitar was very well secured within the second box.

Bundle contents:
The gig bag isn’t worth risking taking your guitar out into the world. It’s rather thin: more of a protective cover for the house or something for your cats to scratch. The tuner has failed to register anything since the first day, but I don’t use them, but worth noting.

The Juicy Part:

The guitar was double wrapped and secured with rubber bands at the head, everything clean and well presented. The switch gear feels very positive, tone and volume sweep without issue.
The fret ends could have been rolled a bit more, but they’re not sharp or uncomfortable. There is a small blemish in the paint, but it was £168 and I’m a player not a collector hence I ain’t fussed.

Didn’t come in tune, but I always down tune to drop B and this is where I found surprise: the tuners are really positive: not overly tight, not loose, no slipping or notching. I can leave this guitar out after a long recording session and always stays in tune.
Setup, action and intonation all on point, still using it as it came out of the box.

Pickups sound delightful and I have run this through amp head and cab at high volume: the pickups are not microphonic, but you can still get a nice feedback effect, but all very controllable.

I’ve been playing this consistently since purchasing and the only complaint I have is the protective plastic being stuck so far under the selector switch that I’m gonna have to take it off to get rid of the last of the plastic…not exactly a deal breaker.

Cracking guitar

Pros:
Immediately fell in love.
The body shape and the weight feel right. Note I'm 6' tall with larger hands, and I play Danelectro BT66 just fine. I now prefer the Jag body style over the BT66, which puts me in a predicament. I would consider buying a second HB Jag Bari because of the price and the modifications you could make.
The pickups are dirty when they need to be. I use a Quad Cortex as my central amplification, and the clean sounds clear. No complaints about the pickups. The neck pickup sounds better than my Dano BT66 neck pickup.
Overall the string setup is not great. It could use new strings from Stringjoy (my favs). I tuned it to a standard A tuning which it took quickly out of the box. So far, its stayed in tune.


Cons:
Poor shipping. The guitar did have some padding in the box, which was in a box that didn't fit the first box. I was lucky the guitar wasn't broken.

All said I would repurchase this guitar and most likely will as a backup.

Influenced by YouTube, I bought myself this guitar as a gift. And what a gift!

If you want a super tight B standard guitar, it does it out of the box. I dropped it to a Low E Standard and it chugs! I find myself lowering the gain as it doesn't require a lot to cut through the mix and chug. It does however require you to work with your tone knob to get a humbucker-ish gain sound, but you get used to it.
The tuners are a bit meh, and fretboard had some filler, but what can you expect at this price range?
Middle and neck are great for clean, I was surprised how well the p90s sound.

Tip for using - make sure that when you buy strings, they are long enough to fit a 30 inch scale guitar. Not all 8 string sets work, baritones do.

Short version: this thing is really cool for the price point and looks and sounds as good as you can possibly expect for a budget baritone guitar. That’s no insult, this thing really sounds and plays great! There were a few very minor cosmetic blemishes on the body and neck which are to be expected for an internationally shipped budget axe. Nothing was broken, all was functioning great and looking nice.

(Mild) complaints: the plastic that is there to protect the pick guard and pickups was super hard to remove. Not a big deal, just an observation. The tuners work as they should but they feel cheap and if I end up making any upgrades that will likely be the first change I’ll make. The pickups sound good overall but the neck pickup (in typical baritone fashion) is pretty muddy and it took some serious fiddling with amp tones and EQ to get a good sound there.

The looks and performance overall are excellent and truly better than I expected for the price.