SC-1000 SBK Progressive Line : Beautiful looking and sounding guitar but with issues

I have been somewhat of a Harley Benton connoisseur for the last 3 years or so. Decided to try one out on a whim and ended up being blown away. For the price, the quality is un-rivaled! Not to mention, these guitars play and sound amazing! So I have been purchasing HBs fairly regularly for a while now and they're always perfect! ..... until I bought this one.

Upon receiving the guitar I was pleasantly surprised as always with the look and feel of the guitar. All HBs I have bought in the past came immaculately set up and I thought this one would be no different. However the moment I began to play it, I noticed a fairly disappointing issue.

At least 4 of the frets were set WAY too high even to the point that playing in these frets went beyond buzzing and ended with a completely deadened note entirely. No amount of truss rod adjusting/bridge adjusting was going to fix this. Now I was left with the choice of sending it back for a replacement or taking care of the issue myself. Unfortunately I had gotten ahead of myself (based on previous HB purchases) and had gotten rid of all boxes/packaging etc, so decided to sort it myself.

After a tedious fret leveling/re-rounding session the guitar was finally playable. I done my intonation/action set up and this is where the guitar began to shine! All inconvenience aside, this guitar is an absolute beast! It plays like butter and is surprisingly light for an LP model. The HBZ active pickups pack a serious punch too! They are incredibly hot and responsive pickups without generating much, if any feedback! I was definitely starting to feel better about this purchase.

The guitar has many tones available due to the very responsive tone knob and handles a diverse range of genres beautifully. I have used the guitar for heavy metal to punk to pop to country etc, and all sound amazing. The feel of this guitar is that of a guitar 5 times it's price too. Very comfortable.

The hardware is actually very high quality, with a very stable and sturdy bridge and tailpiece. The machine heads are also excellent and hold tune very well and for a good long while, even under strenuous playing.

All in all, this guitar has become one of my favorites, even after the fret issues at the beginning. Also, I must say that this has not put me off buying Harley Bentons in the future and it shouldn't put you off either. I have written this disappointment off as a one-off rare occurrence based on the fact that I have purchased 6 HBs so far and 5 have been immaculate upon arrival! Still got a lot of love for the HBs! All in all, I highly recommend this guitar, but just make sure you thoroughly test it and make sure you are happy with everything before you throw away the boxes!