Harley Benton R-456FR BK Progressive Series

Stands up to comparison with my Aria Pro II (450€ retail) and Yamaha RGX721DG (750€ retail) from the 90's. Feels and sounds better than a Squire that I had. Intonation is set well throughout the neck, although I could probably get the action slightly lower. Holds tuning well. Sustain is good. It's light. It squeals easily when you want it to, and has good harmonics. It is well-shielded from electro magnetic interference. Pots don't scratch and feel good to turn.

Now the small criticisms, which are unwarranted considering the cost of this guitar. The volume knob cuts off quite abruptly near the zero mark. The tone is a little bit darker than I'm used to (but that's why we have EQ on our pedalboards). To get a completely clean tone I need to roll off the volume a little, but I tend to do that anyway. Otherwise there is a hint of saturation, and it's a bit fizzy (no I'm not clipping the signal). The trem is placed right above the volume pot - my other guitars have more separation.

Quality in the long term? Who knows how long the tremolo will last if you're heavy handed with it. I will be using it for subtle expression, not divebombs. If the wood warps within the next few years, it would still probably be worth it for the price anyway.

It would be perfect if Thomann could sell these trems as spare parts. I'd buy one right now for 80€ - 90€, as a future replacement.

Thanks as always to the purchase and delivery team, and to Correos, who are consistently awesome at delivering to small islands.

First, the pickups are excellent, they are a copy of the Duncan Distortion's with heavy bass and very high output that creates a little grit when regular pickups leave the tone too clean and bland. Metal is metal at high distortion levels.

Second, the bridge is very good, returns to pitch very well with stock strings and stock setup. However the knives needed some sharpening, and D'Addario strings improve the tone.

The most important components are lined up accurately, neck, pickups, and bridge, so no major rebuilding was needed. Only the string holder had to be moved 0.8mm to a side to center it. The fine E string was too close to the neck edge, and the palm of the hand would mute it, sometimes.

So I filled the screw holes with plugs and drilled new holes 0.8mm to the side. The jack retainer plate was held by small screws that I replaced with stronger ones. Pulling and pushing the jack stresses that part, so I like stronger attachments.

The neck joint is done very well, not a cigarette paper could be inserted there, no gap. The tuners seemed to have a little play but just tightening their screws solved that. The knobs have no play, no unevenness, no noise, they are true professional grade knobs. They are firm.

Same for the selector, it's the only selector in all my affordable guitars that makes no noise at all. One solder joint broke after two days so I reflowed it, and checked the other solder points, they're all good.

The bridge springs needed a bit of recentering, too, so, plugs, drilling, and voilà, screws and springs are square with the cutout in the wood, and with the bridge.

The truss rod moved silently and smoothly, no problem adjusting that. Tightening the string holder screws doesn't change the pitch much, no problem there. The trem arm seems thin to me, so I added three layers of heat-shrink tubing to make it fatter and more grippy, a totally reversible and easy mod.

The internal cutouts are made well, paint was not even but making it even was easy. The outside paint is applied very well, and doesn't scratch too easily, except I have seen harder (polyurethane) skins. But the Harley Benton has to be affordable, so the quality is adequate.

The neck finish is very good, undistinguishable from the finest Ibanez or Jackson axes. Only the frets need the usual polishing, nothing to blame here, they don't buzz at all from the factory, and their edges are smooth.

So five stars for the sound, five for the ergonomics, and four for the perfectible fit and finish. A bargain. Note that the guitar was totally usable, it's just that I do a systematic check on all my new axes, and improve what I can. For 200€ the overall factory quality was fine.

Most importantly, the main components, pickups, neck and Floyd Rose, are very good, and assembled right.

Edit of August 2025: the axe became unstable, even after some simple bends, so I recut the knives, but with a smaller, not rounded angle this time, and I didn't bother polishing them. Apparently just rubbing the metal with sandpaper that has a grain smaller than the file (diamond for a fast job) is enough. A rounded mirror polish seemed to allow the knives to move too far and get the bridge detuned. So I reassembled the axe with the same old strings, and it holds the tuning better than before.

Note that both the plate and stud steel is extremely resistant to wear, it barely made burrs at all in more than a year. The trem was also upgraded with all-steel Schaller saddles last year. Now I am happy to report than stability is better than it ever was; bends, deep dives or raised pitch, the trem returns to the exact note. Just be prepared to do some maintenance every now and then. It's such a relief seeing the tuner's needle returning to the accurate center each time.

A Floyd Rose special bridge alone cost about €80!! So having an €80 trem system on a guitar that cost only €150 is the first thing that attracted my attention! Besides having heard good reviews of HB guitars, I decided to give it a try although in the past I've always been very apprehensive about buying low cost guitars with a Floyd Rose!!
It only took 6 days to ship to my doorstep!! I'm in Mauritius!! So having it shipped from Europe that fast was surprisingly satisfying considering the fact that most items I order online from anywhere else take way longer than that!!...
The guitar out of the box was perfectly set up!! Plugged it and was amazed that it was in tune!! Tuning stability is excellent!! No matter how hard and extreme I used the whammy bar, the guitar stayed in tune!! So it was a great relief as well as a great sense of joy!!
The pickups are high gain Humbuckers!! So it's not really a guitar for clean sounds!! With distortion however, the sound you get is absolutely perfect and it made me realise that the natural sustain of the guitar very very good!!!
If you are more into Rock and Metal stuffs and love the heavy distorted sounds, this guitar is a must have!! Not only for the price, but also for it's look, build quality and playability!!...

Harley Benton progressive series. Arrived Wednesday, but only today I've been able to have a play/set it up to my tastes.

So I thought I'd write a quick review for people - especially those who are looking at the Harley Benton range as a backup/spare etc.

(as always, this is my personal opinion, yours may be a different experience altogether)

First impressions out of the box - it's very well put together. No dodgy screws, wiring is perfect, no scratchy pots or buzzing/earthing issues.

The neck is a bit wider than I expected, but also quite narrow in depth so it's extremely comfortable overall. Frets are perfect, no rough spots or lifted areas. Fret ends are good too, I had one that was slightly protruding past the board, but a quick file sorted it out. I'd say it's somewhere between Fender and Gibson spacing, very comfortable and quite easy to adapt to as well.
I will say that the board was quite dry when I received it, so it's been given the VIP lemon oil treatment as well as part of my setup routine.

Pickups - they're pretty good for the heavier stuff, no loss of clarity in high gain, and really glassy/chimey sounding on clean. Sustain is V good also.

Floyd Rose Special bridge - not as complicated as I thought (Thomann has an excellent series of video guides on YouTube!) It holds tuning perfectly, and who doesn't love a good pinch harmonic into a dive bomb haha!!

Overall, I'm extremely happy with this guitar. Took a week for shipping (over UK Bank Holiday weekend too!) Total price including shipping - £159.

So in conclusion, I think it's a freaking fantastic guitar for the price, especially considering the FR Special tremolo can be £80+ on its own. The neck feels gorgeous, some lovely tones available and overall its just brilliant value for money IMO.

In conclusion, if you're looking for a backup/spare guitar for gigging or different tunings, you will NOT be disappointed with one of these. So much so, its now becoming my favourite guitar from my collection.

The good - this thing is a beast. You will never find another brand new guitar of this quality with a Floyd Rose for this kind of money. I was really surprised at how nice it actually is. The frets are huge, fret ends are filed down super nice, neck is fast as hell, and the pickups sound great. I've seen other comments about the Floyd and the tuners being junky, but thats not been my experience yet at all.
The bad - right out of the box, I had to make an adjustment on the input jack because the cable wasn't making a good connection. Very simple fix, and nothing to complain about. I noticed the frets were very scratchy when doing string bends.
Considering I knew I was changing strings and drop tuning anyway, I went ahead and pulled the factory springs, polished the frets, treated the fretboard with some lemon oil (it needed this badly), threw on a new set of Paradigm stings, and did a complete setup. A couple hours worth of work made a world of difference in this guitar. Its quickly becoming the new favorite in my collection.

Overall verdict:
I've owned it for 1.5 year. It's simply hard to beat a USD$200 guitar because there just aren't any competitors at the same price point. However it is far from perfect right out of the box and you can expect some real works be put into this such as fret leveling and parts replacement. Floyd Rose Special is indeed unreliable. I enjoy the fixing processes but do not recommend anyone who expect perfect guitars to buy this, and buy the Indonesian made Harley Bentons instead.

Tuners:
They are pretty bad. It is not a problem just because this guitar has a locking nut. The tuners slips tuning, often jumps between notes and just feels bad. They work alright if just dialing in the rough tuning before locking the entire system up. Feel free to replace them if you want.

Truss rod:
Really, really, really tight. Every time I have to clamp the hex key with a wench and use my upper body strength just to turn it (Yes I'm weak). However it works. It's double action and do its job just fine. I've turn it a couple times throughout the year during string changing between 42 and 46 string set, and it kept the neck straight every time.

Locking nut:
Solid nut. Some shallow grooves are dug under the strings after the year but it's not a problem. Both the screws and the threads on the nut side are still intact and not stripping. The clamping blocks have some indents from the screws locking them, but the string clamping face is still perfectly flat with minor surface wears. Overall the nut works well and I have no complain about it.

Fretboard:
The wood is really black, almost as black as ebony as those I've seen in person. There are obvious wood grains and the surface is overall rougher which set them apart. After the year of playing there are wear marks in between the strings but it's usual business and it kept its colour pretty well. I'm more of a rosewood guy but I still like this fretboard wood.

Frets:
Just sub-par and possibly the component that needs the most fixing. They're really dirty out of the box with black, sticky goo (almost glue-like instead of leftover polishing compound) all over them. I cannot recall how much rubbing alcohol I've used just to clean them off. After cleaning it's revealed that the frets are quite rough and a bit rusty. Unsurprisingly there are gunk under the skirts of the frets and I have to clean them out with a utility knife. Fret ends are pretty sharp as per cheap Chinese strat standards. The more problematic side is that the 1st fret is too low and I cannot properly play open chords without fret buzzing (and straight up impossible for F chord), and there are minor low/high frets here and there up the 15th frets region. I've tolerate the issue for a while before doing a fret leveling and polishing job myself, while filing down the fret ends. These "little" moves brought up the playability of the guitar to an whole other level and it's now basically neck-and-neck with many more premium big-brand super strat I've played. It had shown moderate wear throughout the year but it's the usual amount for nickel ones. I am pretty contempt with them after all.

Neck:
It's a 2-piece maple neck just like in the photo. Mine has a more interesting, less unidirectional grain line for the main section. It even has some slight flamed effect around the grains. But that never seems to affect the stability and it never show shrinkage/warping through out the year's seasons changes, and always stayed flat as set.

Neck size, shape and finish:
20.5mm at 1st fret, 22.3mm at 12th fret. It's D-shaped but with a shorter shoulder, unlike some Jackson D-shape I've played that feels like a rectangle. I can comfortably reach the higher frets with my thumb still under the neck (around 16th fret) instead of hugging the heel joint area which I hated. The back was satin but is glossed over after the year of playing. Still being nice and smooth.

Bridge:
The Achilles' Heel of this guitar, being the Floyd Rose Special cast zinc saddles. They originally worked fine but after a year of playing the high e and B saddles started popping out strings because of the countless marks and grooves inside them resulting from string changings. They are completely irreparable so I replaced them with aftermarket stainless steel saddles, which works wonder and solves the increasing tuning issue with the failing saddles. So yes, the Special is indeed a liability over long term. Consider replacing the saddles anytime. I do not find replacing the whole trem necessary as the knives edges are still fine and just need some filing over. Personally I replaced the trem block to a bigger brass one. Overall the trem one works and feels fine. Heavily reconsider your options if you don't want to mess with Floyd Rose Special's problems.

Pickups:
Bright, metal oriented humbuckers. There is a video on Youtube that compares them with EMG 81 on a Ibanez and that demo is a pretty good representation of the sound. They have their characters and work well.

Electronics:
Mostly fine. The 3 way pickup switch needs replacing as it could lose connection with a slight touch when on the bridge position.

Conclusions:
Not much regrets after the works done because it's still an affordable investment. But you need to be patient to deal with the issues and bring out the potential of the guitar.

Overall build quality is quite good: body, neck, fingerboard is well-polished as well as frets.

Tuning pegs are crap. Two of them have a significant backlash and you cannot fix that because there no any adjustment responsible for that. Oh! And you rotate it towards the headstock end to tighten the string top 3 strings and towards the bridge to tighten the bottom 3 strings which is confusing and definitely sucks

Pickups are not very impressive. there is a luck of high frequencies using the same amp and cable, but can be adjusted with eq so ok

Kit strings just suck - better replace them first thing

Volume control knob is awkwardly displaced but rotates quite smooth.

And the biggest dissapointment is a Floyd Rose tremolo which is FR Special on this guitar. It's an absolute piece of shit which it does not keep tuning at all. The quality of tuning screws is terrible - you cannot adjust them smoothly probably because of the bad metal and as a result bad screw-thread

I can compare it with Cort X250 of the same price and looks very similar in terma of build quality (though the headstok is 6 in line on Cort which looks better to me). But Cort has EMG pickups. And though it has a licensed Cort Floyd Rose tremolo the build quality is much better and it never gets out of tune for me despite the "true" FR Special

It is still quite a good deal for the price but I would have never bought it again honestly

Tuned down 1/2 step playing Van Halen. Hold its tune like a mutha f$&)(. Solid stable feels great sounds great. Never seen anything like this in the USA. Buy 4 or five for various turnings, locations, backups, The supreme feet of modern manufacturing. This is going to be the iconic staple of the 21st century. Buy now. Buy many, this is the elderado of guitar. Definitely an intermediate to advanced guitar. You need to do your homework to learn to use the Floyd Rose. The neck is phenomenal, so stable so sweet. Can't say enough great things about this axe. Thomann really deserves accolades for this product.

I guess this guitar is some sort of Ibanez imitation or a Budget Super-Strat, and it's really good. The construction is good and there were no defects, it's set up well out of the box.

The main feature is the Floyd Rose Tremelo. This is the 1st I've ever had, and the "word" is that you, like, "never have to tune again!". Well, you do (at least I do), but you almost don't! It's really great: the tuning stability WHEN USING THE TREMELO is there. Incredible. I'm speechless.

The body finish scratches up but that doesn't really bother me.

I'm pretty much a "Harley Benton Bottom Feeder": I have a bunch of their guitars, but mostly under $200, some over.

This one is the "fastest" of all of them. Probably not as fast as an Ibanez (I understand that they have a specially designed neck that's extremely fast) but is fast and easy to play. It's wider than a traditional electric but easy to get used to (I play a Classical Guitar too, so this is ok.) However, I think I'd like it better if it wasn't as thick, something of a "baseball bat" for a neck. Fast though.

The pickups sound ok. They're Humbuckers but "microphonic", so they'll pick up pick and string noise at higher volumes and probably generate too much feedback (I'm a "Low-Watt Busker", so it's fine for me....for now.)

One Tone and One Volume Knob each, I like that just fine.

On how it sounds: add some Overdrive or Distortion Effect and it's a great Metal Guitar for sure, I like it for a lot Heavy or Hard Rock, especially anything that you "whammy".

Surprisingly, at least to my ear, turn off the distortion, play it straight - I like it for Jazz! (Weird.)

Anyway, except for the pick-up noise,
MY FINAL JUDGEMENT IS!!!.....


..Cool man. Dig it.

I give this guitar a 5 star rating because this thing is just bad-ass.! Its got a fast neck, plays good and looks sexy as hell.! It took me a min to get it in tune because the strings was so new but once i got it in tune and locked it down thats all i had to do... It needed no neck adjustments, no fret leveling, no intonation adjustments.! Ive been playing for many years and have had big name brand guitars and i'm impressed with Harley Benton Guitars.! I've got my eye on a few more Harley Benton's already... Love this guitar man.! Buy it.! This is a must to have in your collection... I dont think you'll be disappointed