R-458BK Fanfret : The best multiscale 8 for under a grand

Bought this instrument about a month ago and I could not be happier with my purchase. I was initially in the market for an 8 string and also multiscale to get my feet wet with both but wasn't exactly comfortable spending 600~700 for a comparable jackson that I may not gel with, so I looked around for potential harley bentons and spotted this immediately. I figured since it was much more affordable why not try it. Probably the better decision, turns out the overall build quality is on par with our other guitarists' EC258, if not slightly better. The stock pickups were substantially worse, but I already had a set of fishman stephen carpenter sig pickups ready to drop in and it was an easy wiring job. What I was not expecting was for everything else to be solid; bought locking tuners thinking the stock ones would be really bad but turns out they hold tune extremely well and don't jump, something that the other guitarist's ESP struggles with heavily at 3 times the price. All in all, I would absolutely recommend this instrument for anyone interested in multiscales or 8s, just get a set of pickups and you're set!