Harley Benton HB35+ - VERSUS - Firefly 338 - WHICH ONE WILL I KEEP?

everyone I'm Ryan you're watching 60 cycle hum and today I'm gonna compare two very budget-friendly semi-hollow electric guitars on my right I've got the Harley Benton hp-35 on my left the Firefly 338 you can see exactly what these guitars are trying to do they're trying to do that Gibson 335 style thing going on here with various tweaks among them so anyways let's talk about the price first this one the Harley Benton we're gonna call it a $230 guitar because it's 200 on the Toman website depending on what exchange rates are doing that hour or whatever then they got attack on $30 shipping to get it to you you can put other things in that shipping order so you put two guitars on an order is $15 shipping whatever we're still gonna call it 230 bucks the Firefly Amazon Prime in the States 140 bucks when I bought mine was 130 they had to raise the price 10 bucks at least that's how how I'm remembering it anyways so anyway it's like I know this is technically like $90 more but let's just consider these are in the same price point I mean anything under 250 bucks that is not just playable but it's also like a fun player a Giga bilang guitar is amazing so both of these in my opinion pass that test and both live in the same price point really also you can get these pretty often they usually have them in stock these things sell out quick when they're on Amazon like you got to be in a Facebook group where people tell you that these things are available for you to snatch them up because otherwise they all sell out within a couple days to a week and then people start flipping them on eBay for 200 bucks yes that's what people are doing is crazy so considering that people are buying these on eBay for 200 bucks this is 230 I consider them kind of same price point something I want to talk about before I get into hard comparing details and stats is that when I finally got these in the same room and were swapping them back and forth and playing them I could not believe how similar the next felt it they felt so similar I actually went out and a curved gauge it does this sort of thing I got this from Harbor Freight from for like six bucks or whatever and I started measuring the neck from the nut down to the twelfth fret and it pretty much matches up identically like right now I can engage right there the third fret more wrong the third fret over here it matches up perfectly that's crazy and it does the whole thing it does and it does that all the way down on both guitars it's the same shape neck even the way it transitions from the nut to the headstock feels the same it's pretty incredible which tells me either these two companies are using the exact same template but they got somewhere to make these next shapes or they're being produced in the same factory by the same people with the same equipment I mean there's a lot of other details once you get outside the neck here that is different between these guitars but also details that are the same so I think that is really the sleuthy thing we have to figure out here as this video goes on the debate is are these guitars made by the same people what's going on here so anyways let's start getting into some other specs there is a different scale length on these two guitars not dramatically different but the Firefly is a 25 inch scale the Harley Benton is a 24 and 3/4 scale and quarter inch difference big deal who cares the frat work is very similar between these two guitars and I don't mean like oh wow they've really hit the same level of high quality between them too I mean these are budget guitars they both have the same kind of unpolished gritty feel across all the frets they didn't do you know any sort of high-end high-quality polish on these frets the way the frets are trimmed on the edge of the Harley Benton is a little bit smoother but also a little bit kind of like the way they smooth it looks a little bit sloppy and like it was done quickly there's no smoothing on the edges of the Firefly fret but they're both trimmed in a way where they're not sticking over they're not sharp on the edges or anything like that the fret wire feels the exact same weight height dimensions whatever you want to call it kind of like this modern medium fret all the way across the fretboard I honestly wouldn't be surprised if this fret wire came from the exact same source the exact same weight the exact same brand whatever they feel the same to me it's just a little bit of difference between the trimming and the roundness on the edges there are some very similar details here the binding seemed to come from the same box it's the exact same binding this kind of three black lines three white lines sort of binding same color it's the same binding the nuts are different material but something about the way they're cut reminds me of each other the the cut on the Harley Benton is smoothed out quite a bit more than the cut on the Firefly but there's something about them that feels very familiar even the way both of them have a black painted headstock is very familiar the way the nut transitions to the headstock feels very familiar these guitars feel very familiar when you play them it's kind of incredible I even busted out my scale here my my shipping scale because the weight felt very similar to me turns out this one is a tad bit lighter it comes in just over seven pounds and this one comes in close to 7 and 3/4 pounds I think it's like 7 pounds 10 ounces or something like that they're very similar guitars in a lot of ways quality control can be very different between these two guitars there's a lot of aesthetic quality control that kind of went to the wayside with the Firefly there is you know you've got this beautiful gold sparkle top on here that I really appreciate but whatever was spraying the back and sides of the neck got some of that gold glitter in there and there was gold glitter floating throughout not an intentional way is clearly like a dirty nozzle sort of situation there's little bits where a buffer got too hot up here or sanding discs or something there's also a little glob of extra paint up there one of the fret dots on the side of the binding is faded on the Firefly there's dog hair throughout the fretboard on the Firefly these are issues that are just not on the Harley Benton deep in lanes on the Firefly are hilarious in that there's just a deep wide channel around each inlay with glue that's soaked in to the wood around it and it just looks sloppy up close you don't have any of those issues with a Harley Benton there's a clear quality controlled difference between these two guitars also the pickups and the Firefly are clearly and obviously over the top kind of microphonic I can sing through this I'm sure I could get some sort of signal through this if I'm yelling at it with distortion fuzz on and whatnot but these are microphonic they all have a different quality to them more low end boom these are tighter and brighter so there's some differences in the pickups for sure hardware is fine on this as far as the bridge and the tail piece goes tuners feel really cheap and jumpy no tuning issues with this tuners are fine on the Harley Benton you'd only need to change them if you have a personal preference really but it's pretty common for people to get the Firefly and swap out those tuners some people do like to swap out the bridge there have been complaints of the bridge buzzing I haven't had that issue I have had the neck pickup buzzed on me where I'll be playing I'm hearing a buzz and I'll put my hand on the neck pickup and it silences the buzz because there's something about it maybe the screw or maybe the the pickup cover being loose on the pickup buzzing around that might contribute to the microphonic nature of it pots switches jacks on this I've been fine no big deal going to this like I said the pickups are kind of tight and bright they don't have the boom low end of the Firefly I'll be playing these in a bit here and you can hear the differences a single ply pickguard on here triple ply on this that doesn't matter to me it matters to you whatever if you're picking guitars based on the ply of the pickguard most people are gonna probably take these pick cards off anyways honestly but whatever all the hardware seems really solid on this actually I've never encountered this exact stop bar before it's flatter and square than any stop tail I've ever experienced something guitars so I don't know where they're getting this but it's slightly different than other stop bars out there like I said tuners are fine all the inlay work is nice and clean compared to the fire flaw no big finishing issues in this guitar like on the Firefly I think they're they're finishing issues are completely appropriate for the price point there is a little place on this guitar in the right light where you can see that someone over polished right on the edge here and bit into the finish a little bit but it's like you've got to be in the right light to see it otherwise you get this guitar with kind of a really gorgeous lemon flame on here a little bit smitten with a finish on both of these which is going to make it tough for me come time to choose between which one to keep because I definitely want to don't want to keep both of them I only want to have one semi haul around here is not a normal guitar for me and I don't need to have a ton of representations of them a feature difference between the Harley Benton and the Firefly is that you do have coil cuts on both pickups to get a single coil sound which is pretty unique for semi-hollow you don't typically run into it up on semi-hollow guitars I'm sure people are gonna spam me in the comment section with other semi hollows that do offer that but it's not something that I've encountered very often at all I actually can't think of another time I have encountered that so anyways now that I've told you everything about the details with these guitars and told you how similar the neck feels and you know gone into detail with the price point let's start playing stuff that's what you guys really want right you want to hear me play guitar another difference the jacks on the side of this one is on the top of that one [Music] alright I'm gonna play some clean stuff on the bridge and then compare it to the Firefly and then so on and so on [Music] let's check out the Firefly now you [Music] now let's try the neck pickup in the Harley Benton [Music] you [Music] neck pickup in the Firefly [Music] it's hard for me to tell here in room but I'm sure once I'm in post and there's gonna be some clear differences let's try bridge with some dirt kind of a light bit of distortion from a 250 cell circuit [Music] already I can tell right away that there is less output from the Firefly pickups I have to admit I like the character of the Firefly pickups especially that neck there's something about that kind of low output boom that's going on with it but from a more conventional standpoint the pickups in the Harley Benton wind like I would just be more comfortable recommending it as a guitar to someone starting out or someone looking for something more conventional also you get these coil cuts here is that bridge humbucker here it is coil cut [Music] nice swing from that [Music] I mean that's worth the price of admission right there that was the bridge here is the neck with a humbucker Cola cut doctor humbucker I feel like I'm answering my own question when I do that when I'm asking myself which one I when I would I keep the coal cut makes it really obvious to me like really obvious that I've got I've got to have this one in my life I mean I could do the work on the Firefly to do it do the coil cuts to put new pickups in this to put new tuners on this and the only reason I would be doing it well there's a couple reasons let's go through the reasons first reason I love gold I love this gold top I wish this came in gold top if this was in gold top it would be the clear winner for me just because I mean there are issues with this the pickups are an issue the tuners are an issue but I just love that color I also like the headstock more I like that headstock shape more i've often said that i think the Harley Benton headstock is not really great it's certainly not my favorite headstock I think it looks kind of cheap and yeah this looks cheap too but it looks cheap in kind of a charming sort of way but this is just the better player ever-so-slightly they feel so similar but ever so slightly this is the better player it's a little heavier this is close to eight pounds this is close to seven pounds there's a hair over seven this is a hair under eight but that might vary from individual guitar to individual guitar just based on you know which part of the tree was used and which piece of the wood or whatever tree or whatever they're close enough honestly but the the feel of the build quality that extra bit of coal cut fun there does it for me this is the one I'm going to end up keeping another thing I mean this is me keeping myself honest here and telling you guys the truth behind you know the way I make money with the videos and stuff like that me picking this is a show that this is really the guitar for me because I am much more likely to make money online with this guitar through Amazon affiliate links every time there's been a run of these available on Amazon I've made money off my affiliate links it's just the truth I do have an affiliate things set up with Harley Benton with Tommen but it is nowhere near it is laughably laughably different in what kind of money I make with the Tommen affiliate links versus Amazon affiliate links with this guitar like I mean I'm gonna put it out there right now I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you guys how it all breaks down I think I've made 80 bucks off of tomans affiliate links for all my links in the year and a half that I've had the affiliate program which is not impressive at all Firefly this thing is paid for itself over and over and over again through Amazon affiliate links so it would be smarter for me in a business aspect to push this as hard as I can every time it becomes available to just lie through my teeth and say this is the best guitar just buy as many of these here's my link here's my link as I'll make money every time I could do the same thing with the double-cut Firefly that tele thin line style Firefly that single cut Firefly I just gave away I didn't think this runner guitars from Firefly was impressive at all I didn't think this guitar holds up to this one at all but if I wanted to make money I could lie through my teeth and tell you that they're fantastic and go buy him but I've got morals I guess it's the word I also feel a responsibility to my audience feel responsibility to myself I know this is a little bit long-winded but yeah as far as playability as far as sound quality as far as what it feels best in my hand into my ear for the money I'd have to push towards the Harley Benton if you or someone who knows that you know that you're in love with this brand that you love the look of it you like me like the gold top finish on here you want a project starter you don't mind swapping tuners pickups or whatever you want a project I can't tell you not to buy this using my affiliate links it is a fun guitar for a hundred and forty dollars it's a remarkable guitar but it does have issues and I've got welding those issues in other videos as well so fight it out in the comments section I'm sure everyone's got opinions on this especially people who own one or both of these guitars I'm sure there is variance from the guitar to guitar at this price point different quality control things going on you might have gotten a stud or a dud in your order yeah feel free to rant about that if you want but anyways thanks for watching please like subscribe just like leave me your rude and nasty comments supports on patreon blah blah blah blah blah buy a shirt down below please and stay grounded bye everybody you

Channel: 60 Cycle Hum

Views: 203,074

Keywords: Firefly 338, firefly guitar, harley benton, hb-35, harley benton hb-35, harley benton hb 35, semi hollow guitar, 335, es 335, cheap es 335, cheap gibson, coil cut, semi hollow, pickguard, coil split, amazon guitar, cheap amazon guitar, 60 cycle hum, demo, review, tone, sound, playing, quality control, honest review, ryan burke, hb-35 plus, hb 35 plus review

Id: Ouftn1lbtXo

Length: 21min 23sec (1283 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 14 2019