Gibson Les Paul Junior versus Harley Benton DC Junior

Head to head go the Gibson Custom Shop '58 Junior and the £99 Harley Benton I bought in the used section of a guitar shop.

The Junior is an instrument played by people who started to appreciate the simplicity of the design and it has become a classic and have been re-issued by Gibson officially and by Harley Benton in a more unofficial sort of blatant copy way.

Harley Benton are a well known brand of guitars marketed and owned by Thomann in Germany. This one is made in Indonesia and is hugely indebted to the Gibson original. DC= Double Cut, a reference to the post '57 iteration of the Les Paul Junior.

My Gibson is stock except for a compensated wraparound bridge and the Harley Benton features Wilkinson Grover copy tuning machines and my PRS McCarty bridge which will be replaced with a fully intonatable one shortly. It came with a Wilkinson which actually was probably as good as the PRS bridge. It doesn't fully intonate at the moment but it's fine.

Apart from those things and possibly a replaced nut, the Harley Benton is stock.

In true cliché style, I have a Mojo P90 pickup ordered but I'm wondering if it needs it. Have a listen and see what you think and remember, the Gibson cost me £1900 used and the Harley Benton £99. You could buy 19 Harley Bentons for one Gibson...

I'm going into a Lazy J 20 in the bright channel 2 about halfway with a Tone king Ironman II mini on.
The reverb is a Strymon Flint set to plate.

I try to duplicate some phrases between the guitars and do some comparisons of the tone and volume controls - very important components for this type of guitar.

I have Kluson tuners, the Mojo P90 and 0.022uF paper in oil cap and a new Wilkinson bridge arriving but even now, does it give the Gibson a run for its money?

Maybe it sounds better? What do you think?

00:00 Intro
00:12 Harley Benton max volume and tone 1
01:00 Gibson max volume and tone 1
01:48 Harley Benton max volume and tone 2
02:35 Gibson max volume and tone 2
03:22 Harley Benton tone control test
05:50 Gibson tone control test
08:32 Harley Benton volume control test
10:32 Gibson volume control test
12:26 Harley Benson playing 1
13:24 Gibson Playing 1
14:10 Harley Benton playing 2 with tone at half
16:06 Gibson playing 2 with tone at half
18:20 Harley Benton Powa Kords™
20:24 Gibson Kords of Powa™

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