Good playability, but...

Ok, so this is my first (and, so far, only) 8-string guitar. Also, it is my first multiscale guitar. I have very little experience with both, so this might not be a very faithful review.

Harley Benton is Thomann's in-house brand. Overall, the perception I have is that they are decent products and very reasonably priced, so, you kinda get good bang for buck. And, essentially, it was the case with this guitar. With a few "buts".

Overall construction is pretty damn good! The specs are pretty interesting as well: - 8 strings; - Basswood body w/ quilted maple veneer; - 5-piece maple/nato neck-through-body construction; - Roseacer fretboard (essentially, very dark, chemically treated, maple); - 24 frets; - 25.5" - 27" multi scale design; - 2x HBZ Elektrisola Humbuckers; - 3-way switch (and the pickups are both 4-conductor); - Locking Tuners; - Monorail bridge;

I bought this one at a killer price (€213, €399 original listing price), listed as "B-stock". This may mean a demo product, a return, minor defects. Usually, this is not specified. So, I took the gamble. When it arrived, it played ok, but not my personal setup preference. So I went to work my magic on it. This is when things went bad: fretjob was a trainwreck! Unlevelled frets and quite a few of them were starting to pop off. There were also some imperfections with the finish (a very thin maple top veneer has some "holow spots" beneath, but nothing serious).

So I took it to my luthier. Luckily, he was able to fix everything up and give it a proper fretjob. Yay! So, fretjob was no longer an issue.

Next, I restrung the whole thing (Elixir 8str set, .010 - .074 set). But the F# string did not fit the tuner's hole. So, it was St. Dremel to the rescue. No big deal, 2min and it was fixed. So, it got perfectly setup, now, incredibly balanced, amazing acoustic tone and an incredible sustain to it (neck-thru, anyone?). Perpendicular fret is around the 7th, so... AMAAAAAAAZING comfort!!!

Now, on into the amp. Again, in-house branded pickups (HBZ) are not really something to write home about. Too dark, a bit muddy, in fact. The 500 kOhm pots did not help in this department, so, I replaced the volume for a 1 MOhm pot. It opened up the sound just enough to get it on the "good side of the tone force". Great! Another issue fixed!

I dare say, now, that this is the one guitar I have with the best playability! Right on par with the handbuild Jaden Rose pair. Of course, the fretjob was done amazingly (thank you Grim!), but the construction helps a lot. I might, in the future, swap the pickups for some custom built pair (say... BKP Juggs, maybe?), but, so far, this gets the job perfectly done.

It's a gamble, from what I've read, the take Harley Benton guitars. AFAIK, the QC is a bit of a "hit or miss". But please do consider this one. Although discontinued, if you have the chance of grabbing a used one, at least test it. You might be surprised!

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