Harley Benton R-458 BK Progressiv Series 5-stars Reviews

best quality/price

Out of the box the guitar is ready to use. If you need low action in standard tuning F# you have to make some minor fixings - lowering the bridge and tightening the trust rod, then you have 1,5mm on 12 fret, without buzzing. The humbuckers are good, not excellent, but good, low noise and clean, can be upgraded. At all the mechanic of the guitar is 9/10.

8 Strings Guitar

Great option for 8 string guitar for low budget.

Great starter 8 string.

Got this to dip my toes into the 8 string stuff. I Love it!

When considering the price, this is unbeatable

This guitar came to me with one of the best setups I've ever seen, the strings were almost uncomfortably low, with no fret buzz. Was a little insane to be honest.

Overall, the guitar is pretty light, especially for an 8 string which does make it feel just a bit cheap, but after some TLC it plays perfectly, and most times I reach for this over my many $1,000 guitar options. Most of the "light" feeling is in the neck, the body feels fine and sturdy, just a little light. The neck however does feel like if I ever drop the guitar it will break in half.

The neck radius is very flat, so it takes some getting used to, but it helps with an insanely low action, and easy maintenance.

The passive pickups are just a touch quiet, but that's not an issue as they sound completely fine. They're not as high output as something like EMG's, but they do the job. I actually prefer them over EMG's for the music that I play.

The tuners are nothing special, but they do the job very well. To the touch they do have a "cheap" feeling to them, but I've had no functional issues with them, they work great.

Overall:

PROS

- Great Price

- Great sound for passive pickups

- Setup / Maintenance is easy

- After some TLC, the guitar plays just as good as guitars 3x the price

CONS

- The guitar FEELS cheaply light

- most of the components are made from cheap material: the nut, the tuners, the bridge etc...

- Needs TLC when first delivered. Neck wood is dry and frets need polished

Perfect first 8 string

I've spent some years playing 6 string guitars and one 7 string. Somehow this is by far the most comfortable/easy to play! This feels nicer in my hands than guitars that cost much more. Incredible value.

Superb!

First of all, I have to admit that it will be difficult to avoid striking personal notes (pun intended) when writing about this instrument. This is my “second first” guitar – an instrument that got me back to playing after several years of musical hiatus. Second, I write this short review after four years of usage which, I suppose, is more than enough to recognize the weak and strong points of this guitar.

Shipping and quality control

The shipping was very good and on time – no complaints here. The instrument arrived in nearly immaculate condition save for some microscopic crack at the headstock which does not bother me at all but may bother you so keep this in mind.

Setup

Out-of-the-box playability was OK, after changing the strings and a more careful setup the instrument feels fantastic. It was easy to get a low string action with little to no fret buzz and good intonation. However, the screws used in the instrument are horrible to operate. Fortunately, since I stick with the same string gauge and keep the instrument in stable temperature/humidity further adjustments have been very rare.

Tuners are fine. I know people complain about them, but I have had no problems whatsoever. Once tuned, the guitar stays in tune unless I do some crazy binds.

Tone

Most of the time I use the distorted tone, but occasionally switch to the clean channel and in both cases remain satisfied. Keep in mind though I am by no means a tone guy: if it djents I’m good (it does). Just type my name and “belphegor’s prime” or “przyjdz” on YT to hear the instrument in action.

Appearance

The axe looks fantastic. Despite its apparent simplicity, there are lots of aesthetically pleasing nuances to the body shape of this instrument. More importantly, it is very convenient to play, higher registers of the fretboard are easily accessible (I play seated holding guitar in classical position). The headstock is – as far as I checked reading other reviews – a matter of taste. I personally love it.

Overall

In sum, I wholeheartedly recommend this guitar. It is cheap, looks and plays fantastic, and offers numerous upgrade possibilities if you so desire.

Perfect first 8 string

Bought this expecting mediocre playability, poor intonation etc. and a weak scratchy tone like other ultra-cheap guitars I've owned, but it has exceeded all expectations and is exactly the extended range instrument I've been wishing for, despite having little money to spend.

Condition and initial impression:

Arrived extremely well-packaged, with the hex keys and even a free jack lead included. Upon opening, noted that there's not a single scuff, scratch, bump or crack on the instrument, and it was strung with strings that were heavy enough on the bottom end not to be too wobbly. It is also surprisingly light, the body weighs almost nothing and I'm sure most of the mass comes from the neck. This helps it balance really well on a strap.

Sound:

The humbuckers sound surprisingly rich when playing lead parts, only moderately worse than something like an Ibanez quantum pickup, but enjoyable to play and listen to nonetheless. I'd heard that these pickups give a somewhat muddy sounds on the lower strings, and this is true to some extent when distortion is applied, but EQ can largely sort this out. Clean sounds are pleasant and sparkly, the lower 2 strings buzz a little in chords sometimes but it's not much of an issue.

Setup:

Straight out of the box the action and intonation were fine, though I adjusted the action of the higher strings to preference. It was only somewhat out of tune, not enough to make the neck and strings temporarily unstable. It has held tune really well, despite the poor reputation for these tuners.

If you'd like an introductory 8 string without committing £400+, go for this one, it'll take you a long time to want to upgrade it.

Great Quality, Amazing Value

I was shocked at the quality of the guitar when i first saw it. The frets are perfectly dressed, no sharp edges, all smooooth. The neck is very comfortable, very similar to ibanez wizard, and it has a matte finish making it very comfortable to play. Sound is pretty good too, i don't have my tube amp or pedal with me but it does sound pretty decent in the solid state amp.

Knobs, tuners, bridge and input jack are good quality as well.

The setup on arrival was great. Action is perfect and it had brand new strings.

absolutely amazing

now this guitar is a beast

the one issue I had was loose strings which was completely fixed when I replaced the strings with a heavier gauges stays in tune and is rock solid

8 string beauty

If you want to try a wide range guitar, but you're afraid of spending to much money on a instrument that you don?t know if you will adapt... this is it... for 150€ you get this beautiful black machine.

First I'm going to talk about the cons.... THERE IS NO CONS for this price, good sound, good construction, perfect weight. If the price was over 200€ maybe I could talk about the tuners, but for this price are perfectly all right, for the pick ups the same thing, if it was a 250€ guitar, maybe I could talk about it, but for this price they sound very nice.

I love particulary the neck length and width. It feels very smooth to play.

I hardly recommend it, excellent purchase for a low price.

I simpli love it

I ordered it maybe 2 years ago and i'm still looking at it like it came yesterday. The quality is perfect, size is perfect and its not too heavy (weight). I simply LOVE IT.

Just great

Pros

Solid as a rock

Holds tune really well

Nice neck shape

Switch feels solid

Sounds really nice - the pickups work really well on the lower strings

Cons

The pickups are a little bit quiet but this isn't much of a problem

Frets came sharp. This was fixed with a fret file and sanding sponge in 10 minutes.

The strings it comes with are too floppy on the low F# string. Would recommend using a thicker string guage.

Bought for a Hobby, Kept for the Quality

I originally bought this guitar in the white color, and the quality impressed me so much that I decided to order this one so that I could have one to adjust and tweak to my liking and get some more practice doing mods. That was the plan, but when I got this beast there was so little work to do.

I'll preface this by saying that this is most likely NOT the guitar that I would take up on stage with me, but it is a perfectly capable and well-made instrument. I was anticipating having hours of work ahead of me to get this thing sounding like I wanted it to, but I was pleasantly surprised at how good it sounded right out of the box.

As for the downsides:

The tone knob seems to have no gradual control over the sound and changes sharply at around 5pm. The tuning heads are also a bit touchy and you'll find yourself hovering around notes on a tuner instead of hitting it dead on in the lower register of the instrument.

Like I said, I probably wouldn't be jamming with this bad boy on stage, but it's a great toy to have.

I love the neck pickup because its more clean then the bridge.

If you hook it up to a marshall MG it crushes. ;)

But don't tune it like a normal 8 string, but shift all up a string! ;=)

I use this tuning: G# C# F# B E G# C# F# (bottom to high)

Great guitar

I have nothing negative to say about this guitar. It was great straight out of the box. Maybe for the first time I didn`t have to adjust the neck, saddle or intonation. Thanks.. I`ve already order another one, but this time with fanfrets :)

Awesome 8 string!!

The quality of this product was not what I expected from a guitar of this price point. Sounds terrific and plays real easy and smooth. Overall I would definitley recommend this guitar!!!!

Pleasantly surprised

Bought to dip into the extended range stuff, and this guitar was well worth the money. Having played my friend's Ibanez RG8, this guitar stands its ground brilliantly, and for the price it's at, absolutely unbeatable

An elegant and affordable 8-String starter

I got this guitar because I wanted to start playing around with extended range instruments.

My first impressions were very good despite the fact that the head-stock had a small broken piece. It most likely broke during shipping.

The guitar has a very nice shapes, it's contours are all rounded and there are not rough edges.

The high gloss black finish also looks nice.

The fretboard did not have any sharp fret, there is however a bit of buzz that should be fixed with a bit of a setup.

As I've never played an 8 string, I was quite concerned about the neck being too thick, however to my surprise the neck is really thin and is a bliss to play on, after a couple of hours it really felt like this instrument was no different from my 6 string in terms of playability.

The string that were already on the guitar seem a bit bigger that the one indicated on the sale page, the low F# must be an .85

I needed a little while to find how to bring the best out of these hi-gain pickups. I may change the bridge one with a Pegasus as a more versatile choice.

Overall, an amazing starting point and a great instrument to have in your arsenal!

Very good for the price

Let's be realistic, if you are paying this price you are not going to get a Pro instrument equivalent, costing at least 5x more. As such, gripes about finish, pickups etc need to be filtered through a reality-check.

For the price this is an excellent instrument. The only real downside for me was that at this scale length (25.5"), the F# string is a bit too flabby. This can be compensated with heavier strings but with a single trussrod in the neck you need to be careful. Pickups are adequate/good while hardware is what you would expect for the price.

As an introduction into 8 strings this is excellent and at this price you can't go wrong since if you like the rig (which at a distance can easily be mistaken for a Schecter) you can afford better pickups/machineheads etc.

Excellent Entry Level 8-String

I decided i 'needed' an 8-String guitar and figured before shelling out an obscene amount of money on one i should go with a less expensive model. I'm perfectly happy with it. It hasn't got locking nuts or micro tuners. It hasn't got a fanned fret board. The recommended initial tuning is somewhat odd, but whatever. It chugs, it widdles, its amusingly wide due to the extra two other strings. This is an excellent starting point to gauge if an 8-string is useful to you. Turns out that for me, this is all i need. Found it reasonably slick to play and sludgey at the bottom end. As with any guitar, if set up to your requirements you'll be able to turn it into the machine you deserve. Perfectly happy.