Harley Benton R-458MN WH Progressive Series 4-stars Reviews

Perfect Taster

A perfect taster into the 8 string world, A pick up change would be recommended. Out of the box the guitar had excellent intonation and set up. I used cooper tape to shield the electronics, changed the tuners, changed the pots and added capacitors and started riffing away like it was a £500+ guitar.

Plays better than expected

To start I messed up my order and ended up with both this model and the fanfret version.

I would say that the overall feel and quality is better than I expected. The knobs and selection switch felt good. Overall the neck feels nice in the hand, I have several 6 string Jackson’s and this felt comfortable to play coming from those. It played good right out of the box, but I would lower the action a little.

Really the only negative thing I have to say is the tuners are not good and tuning stability is an issue, but if you end up liking the guitar it’s an easy inexpensive upgrade. The pickups are also not the best either, they are ok for seeing if you will like playing an 8 string and not having to pay a lot to find out.

Now the difference between the two models in my opinion is, I think the pickups on this model are a little better, but not by much. The biggest difference is obviously the other model has the fanned frets and is multiscale, and you can definitely tell a difference in string tension playing on the smaller strings on this model, they feel tighter in comparison. It feels much more comfortable for me playing the multiscale, but the fanned frets might not be your thing, I really only notice it up on the first few frets and maybe like 19-24. I would say they are both good guitars worth the money if you want to see if an 8 string is right for you. I think if you plan on trying to record or anything like that you would need to upgrade tuners and pickups but other than that plays great and has a very playable neck.

Budget guitar with great quality

I've been playing on this for the past 4 years, the build quality is amazing and still holds up very well, and the sound quality is pretty good for the price. Would definitely recommend.

Some Cosmetic Issues But a Wise Investment

Purchased to feel out the expanse of an 8 string

Humbuckers are a bit flat but easily resolved

Pit on 3rd fret in middle, paint blemishes, broken string, loose saddles, and small crack in headstock. Customer support resolved quickly - very responsive

Even with blemishes I am happy with the purchase

I must say - this guitar can surprise you in a good way

this guitar is not bad at all to begin with if you would like to step up your game and go for more strings but you are tight on budget. the neck plays as good as my ibanez (rg370dx) owing to its shape. I have trouble keeping the strings in tune when I hit the strings, but changing the gauge ought to solve this problem. the pickups may need upgrade if you want higher gain from the guitar.

In short, this guitar is not the best but good enough for its price.

Good guitar but...

I bought it to try 8 string guitars before i'm buing something expensive. Got my package in two weeks with no damages on finish.

First impression is well made intrument, but you need to tune it and invest some money and time.

Neck is awesome, its very comfortable to play. But heel of the neck was not flat so i placed 0.7mm pick under heel to compensate angle. After this i can adsut height of strings.

Pickups are ok. Out of box bridge pickup was vey noisy, i thought it was bad quality, but as turned out ground cable unsoldered. Don't know its delivery porblem or so it was in the store.

Tuners are cheap and i planned to replace them. Not very responsive and not hold tune well.

Other furniture good don't need to be replaced.

Overall it's good intrument to try 8 strings.

Good choice for this price range

Guitar is well built, electronic working good, frets are more or less even and not scratching the palm of left hand. So I made settings of action once and all fine, every single fret reproducing of good clean sound.

The only one thing I changed is nut on the neck, I put on bone nut as the factory one is hollow and did not provided to me proper tuning stability.

Regarding the sound, bridge pickup sounds better to me, clean and chuggy. Neck pickup muddy and reproducing the distorted sound.

I am using it to play different genres: blues, heavy, death metal and of course Meshuggah covers!

In conclusion, I am very happy with this guitar. I am using it as my travel axe and it fully met my expectations on this regard. Can recommend to the beginners and as a travel axe for non pro musician.

pretty good

Build quality:

my unit came with excellent fret ends, no sharp edges. with that price point though you might want to polish frets.

Volume pot for my unit is odd. It doesnt do almost anything until you start to reach to the max volume area where it changes drastically with small adjustments.

Tuners are okay i would say.

I think bridge saddle screws could be a bit shorter.

Sound:

lower end can get muddy. otherwise its decent for what the price is. Pickups are not something that you have to immediately swap out.

I didnt have ground noise problems with my unit.

Summary:

I think its a great guitar to get into extended range and see if extended range is for you.

Brilliant for the money

I bought this Guitar to try out an 8 string guitar. I have found myself coming back to it rather regularly!

Pros:

Affordable

Comfortable to play - For an 8 string that is

Looks Great

Cons:

The pickups aren't the best.

Overall I think It is a well worth purchase. The pickups aren't the nicest sounding things on earth, but they're not a deal breaker. Personally I think this guitar is great for anyone wanting to get into 8 strings (or extended range for that matter). Should you want to go further with it, this could be a great for a modding project.

Great to start playing 8 String

I bought this to try out the 8 string guitar.

Quality of the guitar is fantastic, everything is solid, no sharp frets, neck very smooth feels nice. Fretboard also feels prestige.

The sound of the guitar is good, responsive pickups.

Would recommend this to try out playing 8 string guitar without needing a massive investment!

I have no need to want to upgrade, very happy customer

Yeah, it's pretty nice.

It feels good, sounds good, and the price was extremely low for what you get. It required very little set up. Shipping carriers were rough with it and knocked the pickups out of it. I put the pickups back in and tuned it up. It's sounds pretty nice. It could use a little more adjusting but it's not urgent. It's very playable as it is.

Overall, it's a really nice guitar at any price and it didn't break the bank. Now I have two more strings to learn how to play with.

Fantastic Guitar for price

I bought this guitar just as a simple entry into 8 string playing and was blown away by the quality for the price. Holds tuning really well and the neck profile felt really comfortable, considering I jumped straight from mainly playing Ibanez 6 strings to this guitar that really is something.

The pickups sound fine and are about what you'd expect at this price range, nothing particularly good or bad to say about them.

The hardware is fairly bog standard but as I mentioned the tuning holds great and frets didn't need any working on when I received the guitar. There was some slight buzzing with the lowest string but a bit of truss rod adjustment will send that away.

Couldn't recommend this more for someone wanting to get into 8 strings but obviously would suggest an upgrade if you wanted to do gigs or something.

Overall Impressive Instrument

Considering the fact that this is half of the price of the next cheaply available 8 string (which I have played) this guitar is outstanding.

The pickups are very clear and punchy (little too bright, but not worth crying over). The neck is extremely comfortable and easy to get used to when transitioning to extended range.

The only problem that this product arrived with is a dry fret board but an easy fix.

Want a cheap 8 string that outclasses it's pricier rivals? Get this!!

an amazing guitar

i've been a lead guitarist for 5-6 years now and i have got loads of guitars 3 jacksons 2 vintage guitars an ibanez and 3 harley bentons and this guitar is one of the best playing out the lot it 100% blows my mind there is not a dead spot on the guitar action is lush the only reason it's not a 5/5 is because the bridge pick up is so crap that i would never use it plugged in till it's gone BUT the neck pickup is surprisingly good! not just an amazing guitar to get into 8 strings but just an amazing guitar i hope to still have it in 20 plus years

Perfect starting point for those interested in 8 string guitars

The Harley Benton R-458 is, simply put, a very good guitar, not just for the price, but in general. If you're looking to try an 8, but don't want to invest a large amount of money, then look no further. This guitar comes highly recommended, and is suited to all genres of music from the heaviest of metal, to the smoothest of jazz.

Pros:

- Well Constructed

- Surprisingly lightweight (lighter than my Epiphone Les Paul)

- Arrived nicely set up, and can easily be adjusted to personal preference

- Very Affordable!

Neutral:

- Pickups are nothing special, but that's to be expected on a guitar in this price range. They're useable.

- Minor blemishes in the finish. These don't bother me, and are purely aesthetic.

- Hardware is functional, but feels a little cheap.

Cons

- The scale length is only 26.5 inches. Tuning down to f# (and lower) is doable, but requires a thicker string than I would like to keep tension. A scale length of at least 27 inches would be ideal.

good starting point for more adventurous players

This is my first experience with the 8 string, so I can't compare it to others, but then again, at this price point, there are no others, so you can't really judge it too hard...

Cons: frets are unpolished. Which is something that's really disappointing at any price point, as it interferes with your playing. Minor cosmetic flaws are present in form of bad paint job around the screws that hold the neck, but as it is on the back of the guitar, it will remain unnoticed pretty much all the time..

Pros: holds tuning very well, overall quality of everything seems to be far better then expected at this price range.

Looks very nice, especially since there aren't many color variations on the (cheap) 8 string guitars,

Pickups are not great, but not bad either. For my ears they sound great for the bass register, but lack at higher notes. Clean it can sound very good. Distortion is not my cup of tea on this one, but then again, that's just me.

It can be a great instrument if you put a little bit of work in polishing the frets.