NAMM 2025: Harley Benton has unveiled the ST-Modern Plus HH, a dual-humbucker version of its HSS S-style that arrives with a pearloid pickguard, sweet solid-colour and metallic flake finishes, and fixed bridge, it is a design that calls to mind Tom Delonge's Strat.
And that, surely, is the inspiration here, at least aesthetically. But looks can be a deceiving. When you dig a little deeper, the ST-Modern Plus HH has versatility on its mind. It’s quite a different instrument.
Where the DeLonge Fender Stratocaster is a single-pickup design, with a high-output Seymour Duncan humbucker at the bridge, the ST-Modern Plus HH doubles up on the fun, with a pair of Tesla CROW-i6b ferrite high-output humbuckers at the neck and bridge.
It is also under half the price; expect to pay £338/$417 at Thomann, the German internet gear retail giant that owns the Harley Benton brand.
This is a lot of electric guitar for under £/$500. For your money you get stainless steel frets, a roasted figured maple neck with a laurel skunk stripe down the back. It is carved into a super-playable C profile measuring just 20.5mm at the first fret, filling out to 22.5 at the 12th.
The high-performance vibe continues with the 12” to 16” compound radius laurel fingerboard. Harley Benton has rolled the edges on that ‘board, applied some glow-in-the-dark dot markers along the side. It has a sculpted neck heel with contouring around the lower cutaway to make space for your fretting hand. That solid alder body looks ergonomically forgiving.
There’s a premium vibe to this. You’ve got those slinky stainless steel frets. You’ve got a Babicz FCH Z fixed hardtail string-through-body bridge, too, a no-nonsense platform for riffs. We have a set of Harley Benton-branded Sung-Il ML-55 locking tuners and a graphite nut on hand to help keep your tuning stable.
Judging by the demo video, the the ST-Modern Plus HH is going to tear it up in high-gain situations, a metal guitar camouflaged behind the traditional six-string livery of Daphne Blue and pearloid. But it sounds nice clean, too.
And so if those finish options and the aesthetic might peak the passing interest of Blink-182 fans – of high-volume pop-punk and rock players – but it might ultimately earn its stripes as a workhorse electric guitar, an S-style with a bit of flash to it – a champagne Suhr feel on a beer money budget – but one that can be applied to all kinds of styles, too.
It’s certainly one of the most eagerly anticipated Harley Benton guitars in recent years, having been teased a while back. And you can see more of it over at Harley Bentonand order it via Thomann.
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