Harley Benton R-458MN WH Progressive Series 5-stars Reviews

Really nice for the price

Honestly was looking forward to doing some 8-string projects, and when I saw the price, I didn’t really think twice.

The material of the body and neck feel really nice. The tuning stability is average, but not really complaining. A big bend might detune it by a few cents but not extremely noticeable.

Only real downside is the sound of the pick-ups. They’re pretty muddy and really give you the sound you’d expect from a cheap guitar. Might actually replace them at some point.

Overall, if you’re on a budget and not looking for the absolute best sound, it’s great.

Perfect Djent Machine

It arrived practically in tune, action was fantastic, factory strings were decent - plugged it in and it sounded great. Both neck and bridge pickup give a nice variety of tones, and the neck is very comfortable. Tuners have been staying in tune with no issue.

Ordered this with low expectations - it’s not my first Harley Benton but it definitely won’t be my last.

Good value

Got for a bit of fun and is very fun to play around on

Chug Machine!!!

After some thicker D'addario strings and a little set up and this thing is heeeaaaavvvyyyy! I absolutely love it. Build quality is amazing for the price point. It's actually well balanced which I thought would be an issue but HB got it right in this one. Pick-ups aren't the best but, they aren't terrible by any means. I put some Black Winters in mine and now it sounds like Hell on Earth! The overall quality is crazy good! The finish is perfect. Everything works just like it should. Frets are really good. No rough edges on mine at all. I have 6 other more expensive guitars (Ibanez, Jackson, Fender, Esp and and HB 5-strig bass!) and this guitar holds it weight against all the others. Incredible ax for the money!!! Might by another one in black I like it so much! Great job HB!!!!

Sum of parts greater than whole

Bought this guitar for a taste of 8 string with the idea of replacing down the road. What I didn't expect was how playable it was out of the box.

Action is great and the 3way switch and knobs feel fairly solid.

Pickup casings are plastic-y and light feeling.

Neck feels amazing, lovely finish though you may need to oil your fretboard as mine was dry (which is to be expected at most price points)

Fretting is decent and the nut fits well, though I did have some roughness on the higher frets so will be giving those a polishing.

Machine heads are definitely something I will be replacing soon, they reflect the price point fairly accurately.

Once I stretched the strings for a few minutes the guitar stayed in tune and has continued to do so.

The pickups are much brighter than I had anticipated (to my delight) and seem to lend themselves to a clean tone. The difference between bridge/split/neck tones aren't a million miles apart which is nice.

Features: 3 STARS

Has only the basics (2 HB, 1 volume and 1 tone knob, no locking tuners etc.)

Sound: 4 STARS Each pickup has a distinct tone and they're hot enough to play anything.

Quality: Build quality was much better than I expected. Great action, decent fretting and alignment seems fine. The fretboard is very dry and some of the higher frets do need polishing.

TOTAL: 5 STARS All these for the price of 158 euro is just insane to me. I wouldn't blink if a 1,000 euro guitar had the same quality control.

A Side note, delivery came in 8 working days and the customer service were fast and helpful when I needed to amend my order. Very light packaging is something to consider.

Cracking guitar for the price

Great to play, comfortable with excellent fretwork. Pickups were not great but in every other way, excellent guitar.

Awesome guitar for it's price

Great 8 string guitar with low price and I really enjoyed of playing such an instrument

Good instrument for the price

It's not a lot to say about this guitar, but it's sounds not bad, and low notes is audible. There was a small issues like small dot of paint on the neck and places for the pickups are too tight, but i love this guitar.

Definitely a good first 8-string for those interested in the deep end of extended range guitars

TL;DR: Good guitar considering the price and what you get, but don't expect to have your mind blown.

First off, considering the price, it's definitely a good guitar, well worth the money. The only problems I've really noticed are entirely visual and don't affect the playability at all, while pretty much only being seen when up close and personal with the guitar.

Pickups and tuners are definitely fair for the price. Although they're not exactly good, I wouldn't dare say they're the absolute worst either. Tuners hold the tuning enough to get through a few songs.

Fretwork is otherwise nice, the edges are well rounded off, so sliding up and down the neck definitely can't cut my hands, however something feels off when bending the higher strings, which I suspect could be the fretboard itself.

I'm definitely happy with what I have and would recommend it to other people looking to get into 8-string guitars without busting the bank.

Excellent value for money.

I bought it because I needed an 8-string guitar and it costs €129. Partly to satisfy curiosity.

The guitar is very comfortable and lightweight. It's easy to play.

"Plug and play" condition when you take guitar out of the box.

There are no mechanical problems or problems with electronics at all: the notes is clear and articulated, the hardware works well.

There are flaws of the body finish and a small chip in the headstock.

I love this thing.

This is an excellent guitar and a steal at this price range. I have used it primarily for recording high gain metal where it performs very well.

Although most suited for heavier material, I have found that it has surprisingly pleasant clean sounds, especially on the middle pickup position where it feels very smooth, and the plucky response of the maple fretboard is very inviting towards sweet melodic lines. It's great to have an instrument that is this versatile.

In terms of cons, I find that it takes a little more work to make the pickups interact properly with your amp for those well defined hi gain tones, it sounds good with a tube screamer but a bit too muddy. For best results, a graphic eq works best so you can properly shape the eq curve before hitting the amp. I would also recommend an eq because there's quite a bump in the 3k range that reveals a little too much pick attack when heavily distorted.

For the price, you won't be disappointed, and hey, it looks incredible!

The best budget 8 string guitar

Very good quality. Guitar came with very good intonation.

For this price I don't see any cons.

I recommend to anyone who wants to try an 8 string guitar on a limited budget.

Love it!!

Bought this for my son last Christmas, and we are very pleased. Great action. great sound, and solidly built. He's getting and HB bass this year.

This is a very fun guitar. After seeing its price I said to myself that I must be getting one of these beasts. It's not a perfect guitar from any point of view. What I appreciate is that it came with leveled frets, but I guess that the workers forgot also to polish the frets after (not that a big deal, it is an easy fix). Also mine came with a broken pickup frame. This also was not a big deal as well, and after reporting this issue, I was immediately sent another frame (thanks!).

For anyone who likes the more growling genres of music, I can say that it's quite fun to hit that trembling F# and shake the walls of your house a bit. The price of this instrument is more than appropriate. Do not be afraid of the number of strings, I still get lost on the neck, but it's good to experiment and have fun with it.

Pros:

-it djents (if anyone was wondering)

Cons:

-small build issues (easy to fix mostly)

This is actually very good

14th fret onwards were kinda rough for my guitar so you either break it in with the factory strings or polish them just before you install a new set of strings.

Tuning the 8th string F# down to E loses its clarity and definition so you might want to get a thicker gauge than the factory .74 gauge like an .80.

Maybe changing the pickups can also fix this problem but keep in mind it's a 26.5". It remains very snappy if you leave it at F#.

Fastest mod you can do out of the box is to wire the pickups into series.

Here's the color coding:

Red- Hot output

White- coil tap

Black- coil tap

Green+bare- ground

The red wire is soldered together with the white wire on the selector so what you want to do is to remove the white wire. The black wire is also soldered to the back of the pot. Remove it.

Solder white and black together and tape them or use heatshrink tubing. Something better would be buying a metric size(8mm) push-pull potentiometer and solder it there.

US size potentiometers require reaming of the holes to 9.5mm.

I play at home.

Super for my money !!!

Frets and tuners by four.

Everything else is super!!!

Tuners have a small backlash.

Frets - a small height.

I recommend :-)

Great for the price

For what it costs, this guitar does a perfect job. Finishing and fretwork is good, tuning stability is good for this kind of price. Pickup output is a little low, but the sound is good.

Unbelievable Value for Money ratio!

I bought this guitar from my cell phone on a Netflix series watching break. 7 days later it arrived and I just couldn't believe it.

The finishing, hardware, design, details, intonation, action...everything perfect.

Clean and distinctive sound once plugged in my Axe-fx.

Compared with a really expensive one that was used in my studio, I can say that it had a more focused low-end which was useful for me and it was lighter, which is a good thing.

Tuning is holding up well enough, dont know if it can get on the road, but can definitely serve for a backup guitar while touring.

Keep it up!

Unbelievable value and great guitar

As a long time guitar player I wanted to try out a guitar with additional strings but didn't want to invest a lot in it so picked up this guitar not knowing what to expect. First off the shipping. Was shocked how quickly I received it from germany. I was expecting 3-4 weeks and it turned out a little over a week in the USA. Well packaged and arrived in perfect condition. Unboxed the guitar and was just amazed at the quality of instrument I received. The paint was flawless, the neck and setup was spot on and everything just worked. An eight string is going to take some getting used to but looking forward to the journey. If you want to try an eight string and don't want to spend a lot to do it get this great guitar. Still amazed at the quality I received for the price.

It's a keeper

I've been using this guitar for some time now and I can only say it is just awesome. Guitar does not feel cheap. Aesthetically it is very pretty and well concepted. I tuned the F# to E and its great. Tuners work just fine, intonation can be set really well, string action can also get quite low. I love the neck, it's just fun to play. Only thing that could be better are pickups, but it would be irrational to expect excellent pickups on such a cheap guitar. Don't get me wrong pickups are just fine, but there is room for improvement. Clean tone is exceptional,distortion is OK. Unplugged guitar resonates very well. That's about it. A lot of bang for little buck I would say. It's my first 8 string BTW.