R-458BK Fanfret : Great out of the box, even better as a project

For less than the price of a basic 6-string Squire, this guitar is amazing. If you're looking for an 8-string fanned-fret metal machine, this is seriously worth considering.

Electronics: This is the weak point, but for the price, this shouldn't be a surprise. It has dime pots and the tone control works like a switch. The neck pickup is extremely muddy with the low notes, but has a really nice round tone in the upper octave. The bridge pickup, however, is nice and bright across the whole sonic range. The switch and jack are noiseless and the soldering seems solid.

Neck: This has a shallow D neck similar to my Warwick corvette 6 string bass, which is a profile I really like. The fretwork is surprisingly nice, but not perfect. The ends are rounded and there are no sharp edges, similar to the work you find on a low-end Schecter. The frets could, however, have been polished up a little more, and I found a few that could be re-crowned. The rosewood on the fingerboard was BONE DRY when I got it and it took two applications of lemon oil to get it looking healthy and happy. The back of the neck is sealed, but not coated in lacquer--again, a choice I'm pleased with. The action was pretty good out of the box and it was 1/2 step out of tune. I like my action as low as possible, and a quick truss rod and saddle adjustment made it really easy to play. This is my first fanned-fret guitar, and I'm hooked. If it were in charge of design, I'd have left the neck free from fret markers, or done something more interesting, but the jumbo dots all on one side are fine. The strings it comes with are WAY too light for an 8 string. I put on some 11-80 NYXLs and they feel great. The nut is really sharp on the edges, but a fine file fixed that for me. Weirdly, the cuts in the nut for the low strings are not parallel to the fretboard - they are higher on the headstock side and lower on the fretboard side.

Body: It currently only comes in black and white, which is...boring. I have a white Schecter 7 string, so I opted for the all-black. The electronics cavity cover is, surprisingly, just as shiny as the body once you take the plastic off, which is a nice touch. The finish had some fine swirly scratches behind the bridge, but I plan to refinish it with color-shift paint, so I'm not worried about them. The body is quite small, thin, and light compared to my Schecter. The contours are really nice and it's no work at all to hit the 24th fret.

Final thoughts: This guitar is amazing for the money. The quality is incredible and it's nice to see that corners weren't cut with the neck, fretwork, and playability. Cheap electronics are to be expected, but they do the job and swapping them out is a relatively easy task. If you're considering an 8 string, this is a great choice.