Harley Benton SC-550 II BCF

Gorgeous looking guitar that sounds amazing, even with the stock pickups. Neck feels amazing, big frets that are incredibly smooth. Bends do not cost any fatigue at all. No cosmetic flaws. Seriously, its incredible what you get for the price. But to be honest, it did need a lot of work to make it perfect.

- Action was way too high
- Needed truss rod adjustment
- Nut way too high, so replaced it with Graph Tech
- It did not stay in tune at all. Cheap tuners, so replaced it with Gotoh tuners
- Uneven frets, especially the 7th and 12th fret. Filed them down a bit, then polished all the frets.
- Less important, but it did bother me: black guitar knobs. I replaced them with golden knobs.

For beginners, this is quite a lot of work and not something you want. Maybe I had a Monday morning model, but this was not something I expected from a higher end Harley Benton. Surprisingly, the cheaper JA60CC and TE62 from Harley Benton that I also own were absolutely perfect. I am gonna keep it though, after all that work it's perfect now.

I have to admit that i was very reluctant to order this one. The last 4 or 5 guitars i sent back and i was not sure that, even though HB now has a version lll in the Fusion series and ver ll in the SC series, they had learned anything about optimizing the instruments. I got great Fusion ll guitars but the only Fusion lll i ordered i had to send back as well as an Aeolus
On top of this i just returned another SC550 ll from the previous batch. The radius on the neck and the TOM was VERY different, 9,5” on the neck, 13” on the bridge. So.. no possibility to set up the string height to fit all strings at the same time.
This one is from a new badge of guitars that came in the middle of september ‘21, so i took a chance and ordered it as the previous SC550 ll sounded really good.
Unboxing was very interesting and to my relief the neck and the bridge now had the same 12” radius, so the setup of the string ended as i wanted it.
But….. during unboxing i let the guitar slide out of the inner bag holding the neck. I didnt expect any sharp frets but i was WRONG !! Anyway, when i stopped bleeding and had cleaned the floor and bathroom i turned my attention to the guitar itself. I used to build guitars and had my own production for some years where i was into grading the guitars - for others too. So i know exactly what it takes to achieve a certain grade.
Thomann promises AAA top and the photo on the website indicates that. But this guitar is nowhere near AAA. The left bottom side has no flames at all and there are no matches between the 3-4 flames on the upper half.
This means that it would end below any grading scale.
If they promise AAA the top must have an AAA yop as minimum - not as a maximum as if you win the lottery.

I have returned so many guitars and i know it is a painstaking job to work on stainless steel frets, so i let my power tools take over. Tough job even for the tools but it worked. The top i can live with but only because the guitar sounds incredibly good and now is playable.
The vintage tuners are completely useless. I have to torn them at least half a round before anything happens and they are unable to keep the guitar in tune. For now i put some cheap chinese tuners from AliExpress on the guitar and they work FAR better than then stock tuners. The ones one my guitar would not live 3 months.

Guess i was just unlucky (again)

If you want great sound at low price this might be your dream, but like Forrest Gump (almost) said. Life is like a box of guitars from HB - You never know want you gonna get !!!