Harley Benton R-458MN WH Progressive Series

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.