Harley Benton means business with its new Fusion-III electric guitar model. So much so its rolling out the series options in waves through the year and this third one has pastel finishes that feel very much aimed at contemporary tastes.
The 25.5-scale Fusion-III represents the very best of HB's value / spec ration; versatile session guitars with core features here including roasted Canadian flame hard maple neck and fingerboard, nyatoh body, comfort body contour and jumbo stainless steel frets.
This third wave of six guitars features HSS and HH models. We'll take a look at the latter Harley Benton Fusion-III HH HT first (£343 / €398).
The big news here is these are hardtail versions; ideal for those turned off by the Wilkinson and Floyd Rose options that dominate the Fusion ranges. You get a WSC hipshot-style bridge.
Humbuckers here are Roswell LAF-B4 Alnico-5 (bridge), Roswell LAF-N4 Alnico (neck) with a coil-split for tonal versatility activated via a push/pull control on the master tone. Pickups and a middle position are activated with a three-way selector.
Finish options are Ice Blue and Sparkle Pink gloss.
The Harley Benton Fusion-III HSS (£343 / €398) features Roswell HAF-B Alnico-5 humbucker (bridge), Roswell S74-M Alnico-5 single coil (Middle) and Roswell S74-N Alnico-5 single coil (neck) with a coils-split on the humbucker activated via a push/pull control on the tone pot.
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These three guitars all feature the Wilkinson WVS 50IIK tremolo and finish options are Ice Blue gloss, Shell Pink satin and Daphne Blue satin.
Check out the new models and the rest of the Fusion-III range over at Thomann.
I'm the Guitars Editor for MusicRadar, handling news, reviews, features, tuition, advice for the strings side of the site and everything in between. Before MusicRadar I worked on guitar magazines for 15 years, including Editor of Total Guitar in the UK. When I'm not rejigging pedalboards I'm usually thinking about rejigging pedalboards.
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