Harley Benton R-457 Active SBK

If I focus on physical characteristics, it immediately fitted into my hands, it is nicely playable, and the finish is smooth and nicely looking. As it was advised by some buyers, I also ordered a HB locking tuners and immediately installed them. You will need one 3L+3R set + one extra as this is 7-string beast.
The evil came when I connected it to the amp. I realized that what I got is unusual, as the sound was a like muddy thunderstorm behind the hills. OK, for riffs on high gain it was nothing bad at all, but I had to switch for other guitar whenever I needed to play something softer and cleaner. So I was rather going around this guitar in circles. Nevertheless, it took me almost two years to find out what this guitar needed. I had to make several quite cheap modifications:
1. When using on hi-gain channel, I always heard some radio broadcast coming out of the guitar. So I opened the back lid, and completely shielded the cavity with copper sticky foil. This really helped out to solve the issue. And at this moment I noticed that this is not a guitar with active humbuckers, but a guitar with passive humbuckers and a built-in preamp behind the volume knob.
2. So I got idea to try it as a passive guitar, and decided to disconnect the preamp from the potentiometer, jack and power supply, and make bypass connection from the pot to jack. Signal was not as strong as before, anyway still strong, but also still quite muddy. And then I realized need for one more tiny modification:
3. There was a capacitor soldered directly on jack socket between signal and ground. Probably mitigation to some oscillations which could get introduced by the built-in preamp. So I disconnected capacitor from the signal pin, and finally got a well sounding guitar with passive humbuckers, still with quite strong signal level (when compared to my other HB guitars with humbuckers).
Conclusion: Guitar is a great build, nicely playable, but to turn it into a real workhorse, you need a soldering iron and some metallic sticky tape, shield off the rear cavity completely, and get rid of the builtin pream module. And only then, if you still do not have the sound you wanted, invest into pickup replacements.

First off the thing looks great, really nice matte black finish that looks and feels great, I tried to find imperfections and couldn't find any that I didn't make with my grubby hands, very easy to leave shiny marks.

The frets are all seated properly, no sprouting and no sharp edges, could use a light polish but that's to be expected. Full marks there!

The neck is pretty thin, my first thought was that it looked like a floorboard had been shaped into a neck but when I started to play it I was thankful for that thinness because it's wide but it's still really easy and comfortable to reach that B string (I'm a bassist primarily so that might not be true for guitar players looking to experiment with 7 strings, I find the B on this easier to play than the E on my 6 string) there is a pretty glossy finish on the back that I found kind of sticky, easy fix with some fine grit sandpaper or something like a scotchbrite pad. Mine arrived with a forward bow but that's an easy fix with truss rod adjustment. The only thing losing marks for this neck is the part where the headstock angles back is pretty thin, it's fine but I think for my peace of mind I might make a sort of volute that I can glue on to add a bit of support (that it probably doesn't need)

The bridge seems well made but the action on my guitar is still kind of high with the saddles all the way down so I may need to shim the neck to get it to where I want it, easy job and not something I mind doing on a guitar in this price range but might be an issue for beginners (though if you're brave enough to get a 7 as your first guitar you'll find the courage somewhere, it's a reversible mod anyway)

The pickups are... not great. They're REALLY hot, totally usable for really high gain playing, they aren't very articulate but the can be fun to bash out some of your favourite metal riffs (first thing i played on it was LoG walk with me in hell, the fun bit, not the hard bits haha) but they're damn near impossible to get clean tones out of, makes sense considering this is definitely a metal focused guitar but worth mentioning. I bought this with the intention of replacing the pickups anyway but I was hoping the stock pups would be a little better than they are, if I were more of a gear head I might be able to get them to sound much more usable but right now I feel like if a fly landed on the headstock I'd hear it through the amp which brings me to my last point, this thing is surprisingly resonant! I'm super impressed by how great it sounds unplugged, sustain is great too, I'm really happy with my purchase as I wanted to swap pickups anyway and I think this will sound great with my planned SD Invader in the bridge.

I would recommend this as an excellent mod platform or for someone who want's to start experimenting with extended range guitars, not so great for beginners (I wouldn't recommend 7 strings to a beginner anyway but this price makes it pretty attractive to new comers so worth mentioning)