Harley Benton MS-60LH VW Vintage Series

This guitar gets a lot of reviews with the qualification "for the price". A price this low makes it hard to criticise a guitar, so my points will be ignoring that fact. Also, this review is written after owning and playing for 2 days.. I played it in rehearsal hours after receiving it with no changes made except tuning; it held up fine !

Bad points: pickguard not perfectly cut, output jack nut was loose, bridge saddles rattle, tuners are too sensitive, nut was obviously set up, but cut debris was still on there. On the fretboard there is a weird spot that would not make it through QC in most factories.. but it works. No huge complaints.

Good points: came out of the box almost in tune (!), set up well (although with very light strings), plays well, body and neck really well finished, sounds great. Very nice looking woodwork, good fretwork all over the neck.

I had a Graphtech nut and a roller bridge lying around and installed them, intonated the guitar with 0.11 strings and adjusted the tremolo spring. It is a great guitar so far. May replace some other hardware along the way, but will take it out to play tomorrow. If you're willing to do a bit of work, you'll get a good guitar out of this; either as a starter or an advanced player that wants an extra fun guitar.

Vooral de scale van 610 bevalt me. Een relatief korte gitaar dus. Best goed, vooraf aan verzending, ingeregeld door de Thomann-club.
Min puntjes: de body (basswood) is behoorlijk zwaar en de stemmechanieken zijn een beetje ‘sponzig’ met dode gebieden bij het omhoog of omlaag stemmen.
Gebouwd in Indonesië waar ze het blijkbaar wel in de vingers hebben. Want het houtwerk (hals etc.) is zonder oneffenheden. Oogt als een duurdere gitaar -en is ook zo te bespelen als je van een korte hals houdt die niet dun is.
Voor die prijs kun je er eventueel knoppen naar eigen smaak op (gaan) zetten. Om deze gitaar nog wat meer te laten lijken op de korte Fender JAG-STANG van Kurt Cobain. Ben er, als eveneens luie donder, blij mee.

I just received my MS-60LH. Ordered May 9 delivered to New York, USA May 22. The MS-60 was made in Indonesia. I was ready for some minor flaws or problems but after inspecting it I am very happy to say that it appears to be in perfect condition. The vintage white body and the pickguard are both far better looking than in the Thomann website photos. After seeing un-boxing videos I was expecting the outer box to be filled with air bags and padding. It wasn't. Just some crumpled up kraft paper and a few small pieces of cardboard. The guitar box wasn't even taped closed so the headstock was sticking out of the box. That was worrying but the guitar survived without any apparent damage. It is pristine. The only thing I've seen is some slight corrosion on one or two of the strings. The neck is very nice Roseacer and seems properly set up. It looks nicer than my Fender Rosewood Mexican Strat necks. The Roswell pickups sound very nice. I had expected the bridge pickup to be shrill and planned to replace it but both pickups sound really good. I had also thought that the electrical components might need replacing. They seem fine. The knobs are smooth. I have replaced the chrome volume & tone knobs with Fender Stratocaster knobs because I don't like the looks of the chrome knobs. I may also replace the string trees. Other than that I'm extremely happy with my first Thomann purchase and I'm considering sending a Harley Benton SC-450Plus to my nephew. At $164 delivered the MS-60 is an incredible guitar.
An update now that I've had my MS-60 for awhile. Something I didn't mention is that this guitar is pretty heavy for a basswood body, I was hoping it would be lighter. Also the tone control is pretty much an on-off affair, it'll need a different capacitor to be more effective. I still stick by my earlier rating. It's not really a true Mustang but it's a good guitar.