Harley Benton CST-24 Paradise Flame

I had some problems with my first HB guitar and had to return it - but this one is staying with me.

Pros:
Looks great.
Stupidly inexpensive.
Sounds good.
And... (almost) everything is straight and level.

Cons:
A couple (well, 4) pretty damn minor cosmetic flaws - which I'm more than happy to live with.
The fretboard is dirty & dry - no big deal there.
And... the action at the first fret is high (i.e. the nut needs adjusting.)

The first fret string height is the only really troubling matter, but it's not out by a huge amount - I have guitars I've paid ten times this amount for and had exactly the same issue with. Lots of players don't ever check the nut end - which is weird because it's easy to do (play first fret both e-strings - both should get an F on your tuner - if the note is high, so is slot in the nut.)

The guitar has been delivered with a decent degree of neck relief, and an entirely playable action (2.5mm at 12th fret I'd say) and there are no buzzing frets. Bends don't choke out and sustain is good. I haven't done a full set-up yet so the intonation is off, but I can't see that offering me any large problems either, so all in all - it's a keeper.

Well done HB - I'll buy more from you in the furture, based on this one.

UPDATE: I found another quite significant cosmetic flaw - dirty brown mark along half the length of neck - all along the binding - it's under the finish so I can't clean it off. If it was on top of the neck and therefore visible to me while I was playing, and not underneath it, this one would be going back too - dropped from 4 stars to 3 - sorry HB. You keep making silly little mistakes that should be getting picked up in Quality Control checks - I didn't order or pay for a B-Stock item, so please don't deliver me one.

The tuners are bad, while they hold tune reasonably well, they are very inaccurate and they have some wiggle room before they start turning the gears, fine tuning is quite difficult. The strong part of the guitar is the build quality (body and wood), I bought this knowing that I was going to use it as a build platform so that was quite important, the finish is beautiful, the finish was not perfect though (there was some fine scratches when it arrived) I was able to forgive those flaws given the price, and the beautiful veneer made up for those tiny imperfections.
The weakest part of the guitar is easily the fretwork, I had to spend quite a lot of time leveling, and crowning the frets, there where some high frets, quite a lot of buzzing, the action was high and the intonation was very off. Not a big deal if you have experience fixing these issues. If not, be aware that you are going to have to pay a guitar tech to fix these for you, or bite the bullet and do it yourself like I did. The pickups are not great, again I knew I was going to switch them, I put an Air Norton on Neck and The Tone Zone on bridge and it made a Huge Difference. It is definitely one of the best sounding guitars I have after this modification (I have a USA PRS, a USA Gibson Standard, a USA CS Fender Strat and some other low to mid range guitars).
-Comparing directly this to my PRS: I equally enjoy both guitars, The PRS came set up and in perfect condition, no flaws at all and there is no thinkering needed, you can litteraly take it out of the box and it feels and sound awesome. The sound is surprisingly very similar (after HB pickup change obviously), a little warmer on the HB CST-24, the big advantage of the PRS is the coil split is much superior, losing little to no volume at all; I'm not sure if this can be solved by putting a better Split Coil Pot on the HB, my guess is not, USA PRS guitars are famous for their awesome Split Coil sounds. If I was going to do it all over again I would have added thomann's Plek service at checkout, since it was quite hard to fix the frets for a novice on fretwork like me. After all the modifications, fretwork and setup it became one of my favorite guitars. So overall out of the box the guitar needs some work, I wouldn't mind if it was a little more expensive and there was better fretwork and setup when i took it out of the box. Keep this in mind before you buy, don't believe the countless youtube hype videos, don't get me wrong this guitar has huge potential after some work (It's easily my second favorite guitar, up against guitars costing 10+ times).

For the money, it can't be beat. But expect to put some work into it if you want it to really be great.

Good:
1. Looks great. Aside from small asthetics, it's gorgeous.
2. Feels great. Action was set up nicely, no buzz, intonation good!
3. Arrive well packaged.
4. Sounds good! I was actually surprised by how well it sounds for a bargain instrument.

Bad:
1. Grey muck/grit all over my fingers after playing. Coming from the strings and fretboard. Wiped down several times with a quality cleaner/conditioner, and it's mostly gone now. But be aware, I should have done this right out of the box.
2. Fretwork/Nut leaves some to be desired. A couple of high spots, and the frets are rough on the crown near the upper register. Someone just rushed through it from appearance. I will be spending some time on leveling/dressing/polishing the frets and the nut, and fine tuning the setup. Just my standards, may be just fine as is for most, especially true beginners.
3. Asthetics, just some small finish globs at the neck joint, tiny chips at the nut end of the fretboard. Nothing major and barely noticable.
4. Mechanical, someone stripped the female threads on the High E tuning machine at assembly. The barrel nut will not tighten and the washer rattles. It just holds in place. This is probably my biggest issue, but I can see how it was missed. It was hard to find, but I noticed a slight rattle when playing and finally tracked it down. Depending on how Thomann handles it, may end up replacing all of the tuning machines anyway with higher ratio at some point. But it's annoying knowing it's there.

Overall, I would buy another one. Guitarist in my band owns three of these, and I bought on his recommendation, knowing the risks. I'm not disappointed for what I paid. With some effort and know-how, you can make this a superb instrument rivaling the one that inspired it's design. I don't own the original, but I've played them and this model is very dang close.