Harley Benton SC DLX Gotoh | A modern-feeling Les Paul with incredible specs for €349? Review & Dem

This is the Harley Benton SC DLX Gotoh in Daphne Blue! A modern take on the Gibson Les Paul style of singlecut guitar, the SC DLX Gotoh is pretty much top of the range for Harley Benton, and at €349, it looks like pretty incredible value on paper. As the name not so subtly implies, you get Gotoh hardware – in the form of the tuners, bridge and tailpiece – and stainless steel frets, Tesla VR-2 humbuckers (with a coil split option), a Graph Tech TUSQ XL nut, and… a rosewood fingerboard! How nice to see a rosewood board on a more affordable guitar in 2021. The SC DLX Gotoh’s body – which is slimmer than that of a traditional Les Paul – is nyatoh, and on this guitar it’s finished in a beautiful satin Daphne Blue. The gold and black hardware and 7-ply binding help make the instrument look a lot more expensive that it actually is. The neck is mahogany, and if you know your Les Pauls, you’ll be at home with it: the scale length is 628 mm, and the fingerboard radius 305 mm. All of this adds up to a guitar that would normally cost way more than €349. So, how do Harley Benton do it? And is the SC DLX Gotoh really all it’s cracked up to be? That’s what we’ finding out today, as I put the guitar through a series of tough tonal tests to see just how many genres and sounds it can handle. We’ll go through all of my favorite styles: indie, country, classic rock, alternative rock, and a bit of heavier stuff too. Everything is played into my Hughes & Kettner Black Spirit 200 head, and I...