Harley Benton R-458MN WH Fanfret 4-stars Reviews

I wasn't expecting much

I'm not a guitarist but i wanted a 8 string guitar in the studio so i can help writing riffs for my band. I was pleasantly surprised when i got it. It had some tiny, tiny blemishes in the finish which are only visible if you inspect it very closely. I dont care about that though, especially for the price.

The sound isnt bad at all, it's not great but i was expecting it to sound alot worse. Some fiddling around with the amp and i get a tone that's well worth keeping on a demo.

Tuning stability is decent aswell. I've had worse tuners on guitars costing alot more so i cant complain.

Feels great to play and it looks awesome! Sure i wouldnt use it on a album recording. But if i was a starting guitarist wanting to learn to play a 8string or fanned fret guitar i would highly suggest getting this!

Value for Money

I wanted to experiment with an 8 string, but wasn't quite sure if i would end up playing it often. So i decided to give it a go since i had played a few harley benton instruments and thought they were pretty good for the price.

First impressions: Its sturdy, very lightweight with good ergonomics and fairly balanced

Pros:

1) Its a very well build instrument especially if you consider the price.

2) I'm having no problems restringing or tuning the guitar so far. The tuners (in compination with the nut) hold the guitar in tune in most cases, except if you do a crazy bend like 2 whole steps.

3) The fretboard has no sharp edges, the frets seem to be in good condition and so far i haven't found any dead spots. The shape of the neck is really flat kind of like esp's thin U (one of the most comfortable necks out there)

Cons:

1) The pickups are very noisy and in my opinion they are the biggest con of this guitar. If you play many strings at once (especially the lower with the higher ones) the sound becomes muddy and undifined.

Overall, this guitar does the job more than satisfactory. You definetly don't have to uprade it but if you do (specifically the nut and pickups) this guitar can become a major axe for your arsenal. Definetly recommending it to anyone who wants to experiment and wants an introduction to the 8 string world.

A fantastic instrument for those wanting to try out 8 string guitars, and perhaps beyond just trying out.

I've had this guitar for about 5 months now, since March 2020 (it is August 2020 as I'm writing this) and I feel ready to share my thoughts about it.

I want to start out by saying that I'm an intermediate guitar player (about 13 years of play) who has only ever owned cheap (think sub-300€) guitars, so my standards aren't extremely high. Even considering this, I went into this purchase with my expectations not too high up, despite all the glowing reviews I've read online. And let me tell you: I expected to take a much worse instrument out of that box. Here are some of the things I love about it:

- Looks: it looks great. Outside the places where the guitar has been cut, like the neck slot and pickup cavities, the finish is super smooth.

- Playability: I love the neck on this thing. Mine is maple with a maple fretboard, but from what I've seen you may get it with amaranth on the fretboard. Now, your mileage may vary since it *is* an 8 string guitar, so the neck is dauntingly wide compared to a traditional 6 string, but the shape and smoothness of the back of the neck (which is unfinished, completely natural wood) makes it super comfortable to play. Even the fanned frets haven't given me a lot of trouble (with the exception of barre chords closer to the nut), but again, your mileage may vary. The hardware (pickup selector and pots) feel great, very smooth. Also, the fret ends are not poking out at all.

- Out of the box setup: The guitar came pretty decently setup (outside a few things I mention below). The action was pretty low (I did lower it a bit more to my personal liking), the neck was straight as an arrow and the intonation was pretty much perfect.

Onto the negative:

- The nut. This was my first big gripe with the instrument. I haven't seen any more reviews complaining about this, but mine was horribly cut. It was so bad that the 8th string would just jump out of the nut slot if I plucked it normally with a 1.4mm pick. I had to deepen it and widen it by hand (my first time doing this) and now the problem is fixed, for the most part. The badly cut nut also affects tuning, in that the string binds on it. My tip is to always tune *up* to pitch, that way the nut won't be a problem for stability. I'll be looking for a luthier to see if they can do a nut replacement.

- Pickups: they're muddy. That's it. Not a lot of clarity, bad string separation. This is somewhat manageable if you adjust your amp settings a bit, but the pickups are definitely one of the first things I'm upgrading.

- Out of the box presentation: the fretboard had some sawdust on it which I had to clean off. There were also some wood shavings around the neck slot, which came out fine.

- Frets: I know I said the fret ends were fine, but the fret surfaces... Ouch. Extremely rough out of the box. Bending a string was like running a block of metal along a bed of nails. This smoothed out naturally with play and the frets feel fine by now, but during the first week or two, they felt pretty bad. I will be purchasing a fret dressing kit to try and polish them properly. Also, my 24th fret is slightly raised on one end, such that fretting my high E string at fret 23 produces an E, instead of the expected D#. Luckily, I pretty much never use those frets so this isn't an issue. This does not happen on any other string or fret.

Those are the biggest things I want to point out about the guitar. You may be thinking I pointed out a lot more negative than positive; do I regret this purchase? Would I buy it again? The answers to those questions are "Absolutely not" and "For under 200€, absolutely yes!". The playability of the guitar to me far outweighs the flaws I pointed out. I've been having lots of fun playing it and if something happened to it I would definitely get another (and who knows, the second one might come with a better cut nut ;) ).

In conclusion, if you want to try an 8 string on the cheap, I can definitely recommend this one. Especially since the biggest flaws are all in upgradable parts, so if you're willing to invest more, you can just upgrade this guitar and end up with a amazing instrument which rivals guitars 10x its price.

Update (April 2021): it has been a little over a year since I've had this guitar. I've replaced the pickups with Fishman Fluence (Tosin Abasi set, they fit perfectly in the pickup cavities with no modification/routing required), installed locking tuners, and got a luthier to swap the nut for a bone one and do a professional set-up and fret leveling. The guitar is now pretty much flawless. Sounds incredible with a ton of versatility thanks to the pickups I installed and feels amazing to play. It was already amazing for the price, but if you're willing to upgrade down the line, it just makes it that much more worth it. I've left the star ratings as they were before since I want them to remain relevant to what the guitar is like out of the box, but in its current state, I'd rate it 5/5 in every category.

Super cheap, but requires a little work

This guitar is my intro to extended range guitars, i have never played more than a six string. Fan frets are really easy to get used to.

The guitar looks beautiful from afar, but the attention to details is a little lacking.

Finish

You can see the scratch marks from the sanding under the finish and the paint is missing in the hole for the pickup selector. The finish of the neck is a nice satin, feels really good in the hands. The profile of the neck is fairly rectangular with prominent "shoulders".

The fret ends are dressed decently, but the levelling is not very well done and the frets are not recrowned and polished, so there is some fret buzz, intonation is a tiny bit off and the rough surface of the frets makes bends feel awkward. The nut is quite terrible, I will definitely change it.

The pickups are a bit muddy, but that was no surprise and they can easily be changed.

Overall it's a nice intro to extended range guitars, but only if you are capable of tweaking some things and setting the guitar up properly. For the price it's definitely worth it.