Today we’re trying to find the best Harley Benton guitar for under €200/$200! I’m comparing the ST-Modern – which is a take on a modern Fender HSS Stratocaster – the Telecaster-inspired TE-62CC and the JA-60CC, which is an offset akin to a Jazzmaster or Jaguar.

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Get the ST-Modern here: [ Ссылка ]
Get the TE-62CC here: [ Ссылка ]
Get the JA-60CC here: [ Ссылка ]
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When I tried the ST-Modern, I was astounded by how good it is for the €179 asking price. You get a roasted maple neck, locking tuners, a compound radius fingerboard and a great set of HBZ pickups for this price. And the guitar plays, feels, sounds and looks great too!

Having researched this a bit, I’m not sure there’s any other reputable brands offering these features and performance for that price – but please let me know in the comments if you know of any competitors to the budget guitar crown!

In fact, after all my looking, the two guitars I found that I do think might be able to compete with the ST-Modern are also Harley Benton models – and guitars that I paid my own money for.

The TE-65CC is, at €149, even cheaper than the ST-Modern, and it’s an awesome take on the Fender/Squier Telecaster. Featuring a caramelized maple neck with a sleek Modern D profile and Roswell Tele-style pickups, the TE-62CC is a rock solid guitar and provides all the T-style tones I could ever need. It’s got a rather lovely Lake Placid Blue finish too!

Meanwhile, the JA-60CC is – like the ST-Modern – 179, and resplendent in Seafoam Green. Here, you also get a lovely roasted maple neck (this time with a slightly chunkier C shape) with a bound laurel fingerboard and block inlays. It’s a lovely looking guitar, and it sounds beautiful too, thanks to its pair of Roswell JM pickups.

But, can either of these guitars keep up with the ST-Modern? That’s what we’re about to find out! In this video, I play the three guitars in as many musical styles as possible (from country, folk and indie, to pop, rock, punk, metal, and more), so you can really hear how they compare – and hopefully we can decide on which is the best electric guitar out there for under $200!

Let me know which one you think is best in the comments!

Here are some links to the various playing samples and info bits:

00:00 Hello!
00:14 Intro and what we’re doing today
01:32 Today’s comparison
02:32 ST-Modern specs and info
04:53 TE-62CC specs and info
06:30 JA-60CC specs and info
08:24 Today’s rig and plan

Clean Sounds
09:17 Clean tone reference chords on all pickup settings
10:21 Wolfmother inspired droning riff
10:40 Blues progression
11:14 Funky rhythms
11:39 Strummed country chords
11:58 Country ballad arpeggios
12:21 Country lead sound
12:40 Grungey open chords
13:15 Atmospheric indie arpeggios

Light & Medium Overdrive Sounds
13:34 Fat indie rock rhythm chords
14:04 Alternative rock riffs
14:25 Kings Of Leon inspired riff
14:40 Indie octave chords
15:06 Upbeat indie barre chords
15:25 Indie rhythms
15:49 Choppy barre chords
16:07 Alt rock arpeggios
16:42 AC/DC rock riff
16:56 Quacky rock riff
17:13 Airbourne inspired rock riff
17:47 Hendrix inspired riff
18:04 Groovy classic rock riff

Heavy Overdrive Sounds
18:31 Classic hard rock riff
18:49 80s rock riff
19:10 Foo Fighters inspired modern rock riff
19:28 Alternative rock riff
19:51 Pop punk riff
20:12 Thrash metal riff
20:31 Progressive rock riff
21:00 Modern rock palm-muted chords

Heavy Distortion Sounds (all in Drop D)
21:24 Metal chugging riff
21:59 Hardcore punk breakdown
22:15 Heavy metal lead sound
22:30 Mastodon inspired metal riff with country twang
23:06 Rammstein inspired industrial metal riff
23:19 Hardcore punk riff

23:54 My thoughts
24:39 First impressions and price
25:17 Looks
25:50 Build quality and hardware
26:39 Playability and necks
27:43 Sounds and pickups discussion
30:30 Which guitar is best? Which should you buy?

My setup was as follows: I ran the guitars into my Hughes & Kettner Black Spirit 200 head, also using my Greer Lightspeed and my Revv G3 pedals for overdrive and heavy distortion sounds. The amp went from the Red Box DI straight into my Focusrite Scarlett 2i4, which went into Logic Pro X. That's it. No post-processing on the sounds was done.

Get all this gear at Thomann: [ Ссылка ]
Get all this gear at Sweetwater: [ Ссылка ]

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Backing music from the YouTube Audio Library: Duck In The Alley – TrackTribe.

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