Harley Benton JA-60CC Inca Silver

Très bon pour débuter à petit budget mais pas seulement.
La lutherie est très bonne, beau manche droit et agréable, les frettes n'accrochent ni les cordes lors des bends ni la main lors des glissés. Le corps est très léger, il à l'air moins épais de mémoire et plus petit qu'une jazzmaster sur la partie inférieure. Le chevalet et les mécaniques fonctionnent très bien malgré que les têtes de ces dernières soient en plastique chromé. La guitare résonne très bien.
Les micros sonnent un peu gras, avec beaucoup de basses , le volume est bien progressif et le tone est très sombre ce qui lui donne un coté "garage rock" sympa en overdrive et fuzz mais les aigus sont un peu en retrait. Je pense qu'un changement de potentiomètres ou de capa pourrait révéler un peu plus ces micros, a voir...
La finition est vraiment très bonne, comparable à ma Fender Mexique de 2021, j'ai rarement été aussi convaincu par du squier ou épiphone. Les couleurs s'harmonisent très bien, ce silver inca tire un peu sur le vert, ce qui match très bien avec la plaque vert menthe! je pense l'upgrader avec des potentiomètres fender et un tremolo goldo car elle me donne envie de la bichonner :-)
Harley benton revisite la jazzmaster, c'est beau et agréable à jouer, à ce tarif je suis bluffé!

J'aime passer du temps sur Youtube pour voir les bancs d'essai du matériel en général. J'ai été très intrigué par plusieurs tests sur ce modèle et je cherchais justement une offset pour le fun (c'est ma 12ième guitare... sans compter les basses). J'ai reçu une guitare parfaitement réglée, sans aucun défaut apparent, tant le sur le corps que le manche (d'ailleurs très confortable et pas de frètes saillantes...), excellentes mécaniques (très bon maintien de l'accordage). Pour ce prix c'est vraiment stupéfiant. Si jamais un modèle en finition bois apparent vernis mat sort, c'est simple j'en achète une autre ! Sinon comme d'habitude livraison extrêmement bien emballée et rapide. Well done Thomann !

Très satisfait de cette guitare qui n'a pas a rougir de marque plus prestigieuses.
Très belle finition,les frettes sont top,le manche est super agréable. Belle couleur grise! Super son avec des réglages simple.
Je regrette pas mon achat. Utilisé pour enregistrer en studio,je répète avec et concert à venir.
Il manque une étoile car pas de vibrato.
Je recommande cette guitare.

This was my second HB, first one being a TE-62CC SFG. That guitar was fantastic and as has been said in many reviews the necks on all Harleys are tremendous. The TE neck was great. This neck is not great like the TE ... it's even better. Smooth, no sprout or dodgy fret edges at all, lovely thickness, silky feel, perfect binding and nice, neat inlays. The neck and weight are important to me (aside from liking the look enough to want to pick a guitar up in the first place). Pickups are obviously vital but these can be easily upgraded in any guitar. My particular JA is very light which is great and I find their take on the Jazzmaster shape really comfortable having never owned one before.

There was only one flaw on the entire guitar and that was a small dint a third of the way down the back where the belly cut stops. It will never be seen and was clearly there before the paintwork and clearcoat were applied so won't get worse. Personally, I don't side with the logic that as these are so well-priced these things are ok. To me, that flaw must have been missed or deliberately ignored at multiple inspection phases (if such things even exist) and makes a mockery of the multiple ticked QC cards in the packaging. That said, everything else is perfect and it plays really nicely so it was never going to be returned for that.

Personally, I'm not overly keen on the pickups. They are fine, absolutely nothing wrong with them but to me they just lack any sort of personality. I've seen some YouTubers get good improvements by putting in 1 Meg pots so might try that as that's a dirt-cheap tweak. You obviousIy get some of the usual characteristics that lower priced guitars have in the pots and switches but that's the same everywhere e.g. knobs do nothing until they get to 3. I saw a review of a Fender Player the other day with exactly this problem and the switch cap fell off mid-review and that guitar was four times more expensive! I also would have preferred the jack to be on the bottom as it's just a pain on the pickguard - one place where authenticity can be ditched as far as I'm concerned.

I remember buying a Washburn Mercury guitar in the 90s which was twice the price even then and was basically junk and made learning hard work. These guitars are mind-blowing for the money. You do not feel you are picking up a cheapo, entry-level guitar because they are not in any way (well, except for the price but you know what I mean). Really makes you think how the big guns have been taking us for a ride all these years. Can Fender really justify 9 tiers of Fender Stratocasters - extra $100 we'll give you locking tuners, another $100 we'll roll the fretboard edges, another $100 we'll give you $20 more expensive pickups. Come on, enough is enough!

I'm slightly surprised it takes a week to get to the UK when I read US customers saying theirs have turned up in 3 days but so be it. It came as a box within a box and both were completely undamaged. International tracking is non-existent. You get the shipped state from Thomann then 7 days non-existent progress until DHL suddenly say we've got it and we'll be round in a jiffy. I never understand why so many couriers provide so little in-progress tracking as they will clearly know what's going on so why can't we.

I wish the bundle prices with gig bags were consistent. This didn't have a bundle, the TE did have one. Sometimes you get the gig bag for almost half price, sometimes they are only 5% cheaper.

I've wandered off the point but to summarise: Fender who? Gibson who? With products this good, it's only a matter of time until mentioning the word Harley makes people think of guitars first instead of motorcycles.