Harley Benton R-458MN WH Progressive Series

Bought this guitar for a taste of 8 string with the idea of replacing down the road. What I didn't expect was how playable it was out of the box.

Action is great and the 3way switch and knobs feel fairly solid.
Pickup casings are plastic-y and light feeling.
Neck feels amazing, lovely finish though you may need to oil your fretboard as mine was dry (which is to be expected at most price points)
Fretting is decent and the nut fits well, though I did have some roughness on the higher frets so will be giving those a polishing.
Machine heads are definitely something I will be replacing soon, they reflect the price point fairly accurately.

Once I stretched the strings for a few minutes the guitar stayed in tune and has continued to do so.
The pickups are much brighter than I had anticipated (to my delight) and seem to lend themselves to a clean tone. The difference between bridge/split/neck tones aren't a million miles apart which is nice.

Features: 3 STARS
Has only the basics (2 HB, 1 volume and 1 tone knob, no locking tuners etc.)

Sound: 4 STARS Each pickup has a distinct tone and they're hot enough to play anything.

Quality: Build quality was much better than I expected. Great action, decent fretting and alignment seems fine. The fretboard is very dry and some of the higher frets do need polishing.

TOTAL: 5 STARS All these for the price of 158 euro is just insane to me. I wouldn't blink if a 1,000 euro guitar had the same quality control.

A Side note, delivery came in 8 working days and the customer service were fast and helpful when I needed to amend my order. Very light packaging is something to consider.

14th fret onwards were kinda rough for my guitar so you either break it in with the factory strings or polish them just before you install a new set of strings.

Tuning the 8th string F# down to E loses its clarity and definition so you might want to get a thicker gauge than the factory .74 gauge like an .80.
Maybe changing the pickups can also fix this problem but keep in mind it's a 26.5". It remains very snappy if you leave it at F#.

Fastest mod you can do out of the box is to wire the pickups into series.
Here's the color coding:
Red- Hot output
White- coil tap
Black- coil tap
Green+bare- ground

The red wire is soldered together with the white wire on the selector so what you want to do is to remove the white wire. The black wire is also soldered to the back of the pot. Remove it.
Solder white and black together and tape them or use heatshrink tubing. Something better would be buying a metric size(8mm) push-pull potentiometer and solder it there.
US size potentiometers require reaming of the holes to 9.5mm.

This is a very fun guitar. After seeing its price I said to myself that I must be getting one of these beasts. It's not a perfect guitar from any point of view. What I appreciate is that it came with leveled frets, but I guess that the workers forgot also to polish the frets after (not that a big deal, it is an easy fix). Also mine came with a broken pickup frame. This also was not a big deal as well, and after reporting this issue, I was immediately sent another frame (thanks!).
For anyone who likes the more growling genres of music, I can say that it's quite fun to hit that trembling F# and shake the walls of your house a bit. The price of this instrument is more than appropriate. Do not be afraid of the number of strings, I still get lost on the neck, but it's good to experiment and have fun with it.
Pros:
-it djents (if anyone was wondering)
Cons:
-small build issues (easy to fix mostly)

This is the first 8-string guitar I play, so cannot compare to other 8string guitars.
Here's my experience with this Harley Benton:

PROS
Playability: fretboard is perfectly rectified. Neck is thin and comfortable, you reach the last frets super easily.
Set-up was unexpectedly already PERFECT! Nut slots perfectly dug, amazing low action and still no buzz at all, exact intonation.
Acoustic (unplugged) sound is good.
Solid and steady bridge-saddles and PU selector.
Mechanics are ok.
Light and balanced weight.
Right size/position/angle of screws, bridge, neck, body, pick-ups, truss rod and everything.
Volume and tone pots work well.
No electrical noise at all!
Beauty: compared to Thomann photos, I do like the real one more (seems smaller...).
I tune the 8th string down to E and it plays definite.
Amazing low price for a 8string guitar!

CONS
I have to say pick-ups sound is not wonderful (CLEAN)... BUT: these humbucker pickups come with the two coils connected in PARALLEL (rather than in series), causing a "Duckish" timbre. Since each pick up ends with 4 wires, you can easily rewiring them to coil-split (single coil) or series configuration. I tried and in my opinion timbre is better.

Nut is in ABS plastic, but it works fine.

CONCLUSION
Considering the price (usually two 8string pickups cost more than this guitar), I give 5 stars.
Still you can change pickups, or adjust the tone with multiband or parametric eq.

Last impressions: the average intergap between adiacent string at the nut is less than in normal necks (6.5mm vs 7.2mm). So it's easier to reach 1st and 8th string at the same time, but you have to get used to smaller distances, especially between thinner strings. Maybe a new nut with constant distance between the center of the strings and not between the borders, could be a solution.

After some thicker D'addario strings and a little set up and this thing is heeeaaaavvvyyyy! I absolutely love it. Build quality is amazing for the price point. It's actually well balanced which I thought would be an issue but HB got it right in this one. Pick-ups aren't the best but, they aren't terrible by any means. I put some Black Winters in mine and now it sounds like Hell on Earth! The overall quality is crazy good! The finish is perfect. Everything works just like it should. Frets are really good. No rough edges on mine at all. I have 6 other more expensive guitars (Ibanez, Jackson, Fender, Esp and and HB 5-strig bass!) and this guitar holds it weight against all the others. Incredible ax for the money!!! Might by another one in black I like it so much! Great job HB!!!!

I bought this 8 string as in the past I had used a 7 string (Ibanez RG7620) and wanted to try an 8 as it seemed like fun. Obviously just on a whim you're not going to drop several hundreds of pounds like you'd have to to get the entry level Ibanez or Schecter models. However, for this price I thought it was worth trying out!

The bridge is very nice hipshot style, tuners seem reliable, fretwork was decent as there was no buzz or choking straight out of the box.

The neck is comfortable feeling, quite a flat radius but also the wood has a kind of raw unfinished feel which I vastly prefer to gloss.

Pickups have plenty of clarity which is kind of crucial for this type of guitar.

Only con is the middle pickup setting is slightly odd, would have preferred some other arrangement, but I'm sure a tech would be able to sort this..

Overall great value for money, and to be honest unless you're going to spend loads more, I don't think it's worth looking at any other 8 strings under the price of £5-700!

So, after a week playing the guitar, I can tell you the short version, I'm glad I bought the guitar, plays well.

Now let's get detailed shall we:

Thomann crew setup: the guitar had the saddles adjusted for string radius, action and intonation, a cent or two off in a couple of strings but the guitar was handled with care and no damaged screws or scratches on the bridge or saddles, the neck was adjusted for proper "business card" relief and has stayed that way so far, good job and thanks 1651.

The guitar was assembled correctly, the neck sits tight and with no gaps on the body, the tuners have a proper angle on the headstock and are well tightened, the strings run from bridge to nut at a matching angle with the sides of the neck and between themselves, the pickups sit at a good aligned place and the bridge is aligned with the neck's centre line correctly, there is enough up and down travel left for the saddles in case needed, overall is a well put together guitar.

Tuners have smooth travel no matter the string and they don't jump out of tune, is a simple tuner set with no locking or multi gear mechanism, but is a well made classic set, the bridge is alright as well.

Neck, is nice, no visible damage, frets seem levelled and clean but they are not polished so when you bend the strings you notice, but doesn't affect the sound coming out of the amplifier, there are no sharp endings on any of the frets at the sides of the neck.

Pickups, are OK, nothing fancy here, do the adjustments to the pickups height and maybe use a multi band EQ and there is enough balanced tone to work with, pots travel nicely and have no spikes or skips that ruin the sound, the switch has a long no sound travel between positions.

Body has a very good shape, sits comfortably on your lap when sitting down, and since the guitar is not neck heavy so sits nice and still when playing standing up, 24th fret access is fine, the paint is uniform.

when played on a quiet place without an amplifier the wood used to build this guitar has a nice rich sound to it with decent sustain.

This guitar is a great place to start experimenting with an extended range guitar, most things on it are standard so you can swap components if you want to.

I originally bought this guitar to noodle around on because a few musicians I've listened to for years play on 8-strings and I wasn't expecting much, but the second I got it out of the box I knew it was special.

I should preface this by saying that I ordered this once and the first guitar came with some faulty wiring inside, but the Thomann team handled the return VERY promptly and I had a fantastic, working guitar within the week! Now, that being said, you simply cannot find a better extended- range guitar for this price. The neck feels wonderful, the weight is perfect, and I think my only complaint may be the tuning heads. The pickup selector works well, and the tone knob does a satisfactory job.

Honestly, with a quick intonation adjustment, a little bit of setup, and perhaps a change of pickups to fit your style, you would have a stage-ready instrument here. To be clear, it's no Abasi signature series, but if you want a decent, playable 8-string that you're not afraid of playing in front of people, this is your guitar right here.

TL;DR: Good guitar considering the price and what you get, but don't expect to have your mind blown.

First off, considering the price, it's definitely a good guitar, well worth the money. The only problems I've really noticed are entirely visual and don't affect the playability at all, while pretty much only being seen when up close and personal with the guitar.

Pickups and tuners are definitely fair for the price. Although they're not exactly good, I wouldn't dare say they're the absolute worst either. Tuners hold the tuning enough to get through a few songs.

Fretwork is otherwise nice, the edges are well rounded off, so sliding up and down the neck definitely can't cut my hands, however something feels off when bending the higher strings, which I suspect could be the fretboard itself.

I'm definitely happy with what I have and would recommend it to other people looking to get into 8-string guitars without busting the bank.