It's an exact copy of the originalin shape and sound at a superprice, maple neck with rosewood fretboard, 22 frets, 3 single coil pickups, vintage type tremolo, 1 volume, 2 tone controls, 5-way switch, chrome hardware.
Featured review by:
unregistered, on january 19, 2005 1 of 1 people found this review helpful
Price paid: $ 126
Purchased from: Thomann
Features: I bought this one a few months ago. It was included in a beginners set (MS15BK, small amp and gigbag). The guitar is a typical Strat-like one with 3 single coil pickups (passive electronics) and a standard bridge (I think it's called "Tune-O-Matic"). The neck is screwed. There are two tone-controls. However, one of them don't seem to make any sound differences. // 8
Sound: A five-way selector gives abilities to produce a lot of different sound-schemes from distortion-crying AC/DC to nice warm blues sounds. The pickups are ok, but sound a bit noisy when near any electronical source like a TV or computer monitor. But this is a single-coil typical problem I think. Using the standard strings delivered whith this guitar, it sounded a bit "muddy" and "dirty". I changed them and took a set of "Ernie Balls regulary slinky" instead. And it sounds great now! Really nice. // 10
Action, Fit & Finish: I couldn't find any flaws yet. It's all set-up properly and clean. Well, the lacquer finish isn't that good. but you have to take a very close look to find anything like that what means: someone standing a few steps away wouldn't notice anything. // 8
Reliability & Durability: Well, I don't have this guitar that long, but it looks very solid and professionell to me. If I would have played that one at a music-store and would have seen that prize, I would have thought it might be a mistake of some employee or something like that. // 8
Impression: I'm really impressed of that guitar. The MS15 proofed that good instruments don't need to cost a lot. I like that warm sound and the lightness of the guitars body. But you should change the strings and use another amp. The Benton one isn't that good. // 8
Reviewed by:
noouch, on november 29, 2007 0 of 0 people found this review helpful
Price paid: $ 94.5
Purchased from: Thomann
Features: This is a pretty accurate Strat clone. It comes with three no-name single-coil pickups with a 5-way selector for switching configurations. It's a bit soft, but not mushy, you can still feel a pronounced 'click' when you switch. The body is maple, with a screwed-on rosewood neck. It's got a nice shiny black finish and a white pick guard (would have preferred white on white, but it wasn't in stock). The rest is what you would expect from a Strat clone: Strat-style tremolo, volume and two tone pots, slap some cheap tuners on it and call it done. // 7
Sound: I've only tried it with practice amps so far, and haven't really been disappointed. The pickups are a bit noisy as you would expect from single-coils, but two of the 5-way Switch positions seem to be with one of the two pickups' phase inverted, which cancels a lot of electrical noise. I haven't changed the strings yet, so I believe it could sound brighter, but the sound still has a bright, twangy attack to it. I guess it would be nice for funk or blues, although I don't really play those styles. // 7
Action, Fit & Finish: One of the first things I did when I got this was properly set up the intonation, it was off quite a bit when I got it. The pickups and action didn't need any adjusting at all so far. The overall finish impression is slick, smooth and shiny, although the neck finish is a bit splotchy in some places, and the black body has a small white spot on the back side. A couple of screws around the pick guard have rough edges that are easily remedied with a steel file. // 5
Reliability & Durability: I haven't tried it Live, but it seems like it could withstand live playing just fine. Maybe not for years, but at least for enough gigs to make money to afford something better. If you do play it Live though, I'd suggest changing the strap buttons, the stock ones are a bit small and the strap has been said to slip off unexpectedly. If I played Live, this would be my backup at a gig, I don't think I'd be able to rely on it for everyday bashing and thrashing. One noteable flaw: You can't use the tremolo without the entire thing going out of tune. I removed the tremolo arm and haven't used it since. Even when the bridge was static, it took several weeks for the strings to fully settle, until then I had to tune it once every 30 minutes. // 6
Impression: I mostly play music between classic rock and metal. I prefer my Ibanez RG321 for this, mostly because it's a bit lighter, nicer, and has jumbo frets (the Harley Benton's frets are a bit too thin for my admittedly rather sloppy playing style). I bought this as a cheap practice guitar for when I'm away from home, and it's done that duty quite well. I expected almost nothing from it, and only bought it because it was the cheapest damn guitar on the list, and I got more than I hoped for. If this were stolen or lost, I'd probably buy a different cheapo imitation with a fixed bridge and a nicer look to it (the black Strat body with white pick guard isn't that nice in my opinion), probably a HBS580WR or similar. I just wish it had bigger frets, and that the second tone pot actually had a more noticeable effect. // 6
Reviewed by:
unregistered, on september 27, 2007 0 of 0 people found this review helpful
Price paid: $ 138.6
Features: Got this guitar nearly six months ago and played it since then almost every day. As already mentioned it has a Strat like body, 22 frets, 3 single coil pickups, a 5-way Switch, 2 tone and 1 volume control. The vintage tremolo works fine but as expected it detunes the guitar pretty fast. The tuning mechanics aren't very durable so you'll have to fine tune it very often. Unfortunately one of the tone controlls doesn't seem to work. // 6
Sound: I usually play metal/rock/punk and sometimes several other styles. With it's "out of the box" strings it really didn't handle any of that pretty good. Especially droped down tuning made this guitar sound very noisy and, well you know. After I installed some "Rider dropped D-Stings" everything sounds fine, could still be better but it's far better than with the Standard strings. And as with most single coil pickups don't dare to get too close to your amp or any other magnetic source. On a clean channel it sounds really nice and warm, the dissortion however is somewhat noisy no matter what you do with your tune and volume controlls. // 5
Action, Fit & Finish: Okay the finish really looks tasty. Mine doesn't have any flaws. The pickups were adjusted just as good as you can expect and everything else was alright. I took it out of the box and after some fine tuning it was ready for some action (besides the crappy strings mentioned above). The neck allows for some good playing, not as fast as on an Ibanez and not as straight to the spot like on a SG but it does the job quite well. // 8
Reliability & Durability: Well no matter how cheap it's price might be it sure can take a punch. I dropped it a few times and it still doesn't have any scratch. The tuning mechanics however do not look like they would last forever. The string strap also needed some adjustments (strap knobs were far too small). I usually use it for practise (you really can shred on it without being afraid of breaking something) and as a backup guitar. I doubt that I would use it as main guitar for gigs but I'm sure if I ever need a backup, that this guitar will do the job. // 8
Impression: Well all in all it's a nice beginners and "have some fun without being afraid of breaking it" guitar. I really like how you can do a lot of nice stuff with it. Depending on what style of music you play you should consider changing it's strings. However it's no guitar for melodic, fast and or precise playing. The hardware just isn't good enough to handle every style of playing. If it would get stolen well I think I wouldn't buy it again. It's not good enough for that. If you can afford to spend a little more money, get yourself a cheap Epiphone that would give you far better hardware. // 6
Reviewed by:
unregistered, on january 03, 2005 0 of 0 people found this review helpful
Price paid: $ 110.88
Purchased from: Thomann (www.thomann.de)
Features: This guitar was made in 2002 in Japan. It's a real Strat copy with three single coils. A 5 way Switch, 2 tone and 1 volume control. It also has a Vintage tremolo, which you should change, because you soon wil break the tremolo arm. The guitar omes without any accessoirs, but when you pay 40 euro more you will get an amp, a cord, picks etc. The neck is palisander and the body is ahorn (I don't know the english names). // 8
Sound: The sound is awesome! I play it through a Roland 30 Cube with the Metal Stack and it's just great with full gain you can create a Rammstein sound at lower gain (about 6 or 7) you can get the sound of the classic rockbands. Also clean this guitar sounds great. I always play my lead sounds with the bridge single coil and my solos with the neck single coil. You can also create the sound of Guns N'Roses Sweet Child O' Mine, when you turn the tone controls to 5 and use the neck pickup, or get an AC/DC sound by switching to the bridge pickup and middle pickup (make it a humbucker) turn up volume and tone. // 10
Action, Fit & Finish: The pickups were all set right. I play them like I got it. The tuners are awesome! You tune them use the tremolo bar and after 3 months they detune the first time. The only flaw was the broken tremolo bar, and the head of the 5 way Switch always flys of, but thats no problem I think. // 8
Reliability & Durability: I have dropped the guitar a hundred times and it still sounds good. it's a bit heavy and during a 1 or 2 hour live show you will get problems with your back. But I would play live shows with it cause it's just a great guitar. I always make great shows with the guitar, turn round my head or something. // 10
mortipeng
: Both reviews sounded quite useful to me. I really need a cheap guitar for horsing around with which isn't that bad quality. Therefore I think I give harley benton MS15BK a try. btw the translations for Palisander and Ahorn would be Rosewood and Maple Greetings from Germany POSTED: 12/22/2006 - 06:15 pm / quote|
Seetheidiot
: I have had an ms15bk for two years and it's a great guitar.
It sounds just as good as my Ibanez GAX30
Although the Ms15bk is heavy i got used to it pretty fast.
It's been dropped dented scratched ive spilled water on it, I stupidly scratched all the paint off and painted it in blue gloss and then scratched all that off.
And it still sounds great.
My other Ms15bk doesnt sound so good with the cheapest humbucker from Thomann, it's really high pitched and hurts your ears.
So don't do anything with it i say.
But it's a really good good guitar.
Buy one.
Cheers POSTED: 09/27/2007 - 04:13 pm / quote|
/ my profile 
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Greetings from Germany
