Harley Benton ST-Modern HH DS

This is the perfect first guitar(it is my 11th, haha). This is how it should be done. Hardtail bridge, locking tuners, 2 splittable humbuckers, great neck, done.
If you are looking for your first guitar, nothing comes close at this price and much higher.
Comes with 10s which is too heavy for beginners in standard tuning.
Only thing that can be upgraded are the string trees, 3 bucks, and not even necessary.
Came playable out of the box, no setup needed.
Slightly disappointed because my ST Modern HSS came with a slightly flamy neck, very beautiful, this one is plain and the laurel fretboard on this looks lower quality than the one on the HSS, but it is still better than guitars costing twice as much.
Feel of the neck is great.
Pickups are surprisingly good and split sounds are very useful and 'stratty'.
Highly tecommend getting both this and the HSS. Amazing value guitars.

So I ordered this guitar as a platform for mods, and I couldn't have chosen a better guitar. Harley Benton puts the attention to detail where it counts.
1. The neck is a dream. The relief was spoton, fretwork was amazing, all the frets sit perfectly and every fret is also perfectly leveled. I only did some minor cleanup on the fret ends while doing an intensive polishing job.
2. The body is also flawless. The neck pocket is perfectly fit to the neck and all the routing is clean.
3. The hardware is all very acceptable as far as quality of materials and workmanship but here are where the mods start making sense. The tuners are surprisingly good for such budget tuners. The ratio allows for pretty accurate tuning and the fact that they are locking add to the tuning stability. Unfortunately the tuning pegs are made of plastic which makes everything in me say that these must be switched out for some Kluson Revolution Locking vintage tuners. They have the vintage look but also the 10mm posthole which is standard on this model. The string trees were switched immediately for some Graph Tech string trees, they may seem expensive but they are the best 15bucks you'll ever spend to get better tuning stability. The graphite nut was cut beautifully and strings don't snag or hang in the slots at all. The bridge is well built and the saddles are surprisingly well machined and smooth on the corners. This brings me to the only problem with this guitar, the grub screws for the saddle height adjustment are too long and once the action is setup these screws stick out almost 2mm out the top of the saddles. This is an easy fix with M3 #40 8mm grub screws. Unfortunately Thomann doesn't carry these so I had to order them on Amazon from MusicLily. (Hint hint Thomann!). I will eventually switch the saddles out for Graph Tech String saver classic saddles for the better tuning stability and less string breakage. The electronics obviously don't consist of high end boutique wiring, pots and pickups BUT, all the wiring is done well, all hardware is installed professionally and sits wonderfully. The pots are a little sensitive, there is a sudden drop in volume when the volume is turned down slightly, same with the tone control. This can also be smoothed out by a capacitor but that's not a necessity. Opinions on pickups are just that, opinions. With that said, I love the sound of these pickups, the humbucking mode is a little dark but that brightens up beautifully with a pull of the tone pot and an instant switch to single coil land. Honestly, 3 humbucking tones and 3 single coils tones all varying in brightness is much more than most people need. The pickups are also much hotter than most of the pickups on my other guitars so I lowered them particularly low because of volume but they still sound amazing.

When the guitar arrived it was not playable. The action was almost 4mm high, the intonation was not even setup at all, no string radius (all saddles flat) and the guitar was never even tuned, the d and g string were flopping in the wind. But now, after a good setup, rolling of the fretboard, new grub screws, a fret polishing and a heavy duty conditioning of the fretboard (one of the dryest I've ever seen), this is now my best playing guitar that absolutely is so much more than "worth the money".
I would suggest that if you have no experience setting up your own guitars, this is a great chance to learn how to do it. There are great tutorials online. But if you aren't interested in investing many hours of learning and just want a guitar that is immediately playable, you will have to get this professionally setup which will add on to the overall cost of this guitar, but even then, IT'S A STEAL OF A DEAL! I have invested 200euro all together and a few hours of my time and this baby plays like a 4000euro instrument.

Well… I honestly did NOT expect to get such a comfortable and well-made instrument for this little money.

No dead notes, polished frets, coil splits, fresh strings, and even the stock pickups are actually pretty damn good. Honestly, I’m still pleasantly shocked.

Right next to me I currently have an Ibanez RG421, an Ibanez Tim Henson signature, and an Epiphone Alex Lifeson. And guys, honestly, I’m sitting here trying to figure out what exactly the Thomann guitar is supposed to be worse at… and I genuinely can’t give you a good answer. Except that all the other guitars cost dramatically more.

Yes, there is one thing: the neck on the Thomann is probably the thickest of the bunch, and personally I find the thinner Ibanez necks a little more comfortable. But guys… again… how the hell am I getting this level of quality for this price?

Of course, I can’t tell you whether this guitar will still be going strong 10 years from now. Nobody can. But I remember my first guitar very well — a Fender Squier that I bought more than 10 years ago. Even after a proper setup, that thing buzzed like a damn bell. Dead notes, notes dying during bends, constantly having to retune it because apparently the guitar had decided that staying in tune was optional…

And the funny part? That Squier cost me more back then than this guitar from Thomann costs today.

So yeah. Massive respect and thank you to Thomann.

I originally bought this guitar specifically as a platform for experiments and customization. I was going to change things, modify it, mess around with it and basically turn it into my little project guitar.

And now I’m sitting here thinking… damn, I don’t even want to change anything anymore.

It impressed me way more than it had any right to.

For this price, I genuinely don’t understand how you guys pulled this off.