Harley Benton ST-Modern Plus MN HSS DPS

Received it yesterday. It was set up very well, action was a bit high, but that super easy to adjust to taste. The finish looks GREAT in person! Super sparkly like i hoped. Fit and finish is nicely done too. If i had to deduct one point for that it would be that the frets arrive a little scratchy. But that resolves itself after playing it for a bit.

The pickups were a surprise. They sound great. I had a different hss set laying around that i expected to swap in, but im not going to do that. They sound like a good set of HSS pickups should. And the humbucker sounds great split too.

Hardware wise, the tuners feel good, the bridge looks well made and the trem action is smooth. And it returns to pitch. Tuning is very stable so far.

Very pleased with this. Will take it to the stage soon. Thanks Thomann!

One of the best QC experiences I've had, rivaling guitars in the €1,000-1500 range. The guitar is gorgeous. The finish looks more like purple metallic glitter than what you'd normally expect from a "sparkle" finish.

The guitar's only real flaw is something I'd consider perfectly acceptable at this price: the frets could use a bit more polishing. Harley Benton made some smart decisions to keep costs down without sacrificing performance. The knobs and blade switch feel a little cheap, but that's a sub-€50 upgrade if it bothers you.

The nut was well cut, and with the staggered locking tuners, string trees aren't necessary.

The Tesla HSS pickups are easily gig-worthy. I couldn't find any cosmetic or construction flaws. The tremolo holds tuning well, even after a good amount of vibrato and bending.

You could buy this guitar as-is and immediately record or gig with it. The tuners, trem, and pickups all perform well. At €400, that's honestly impressive.

The only thing I didn't click with was the neck. The soft D profile combined with the medium-jumbo frets just wasn't for me. Personally, I still prefer the neck on the Fusion III.

I've owned guitars across a wide range of price points, and this is genuinely an excellent instrument.

For context, I currently own a Suhr Modern, a heavily modded Mexican Strat, and a Fusion III (upgraded to Suhr hardware spec), and I regularly play all of them.

Unless you find a unicorn from another brand that perfectly matches your preferred specs, I'd strongly consider this as a platform, or even just leave it stock.

Maybe I won the QC lottery, or maybe not, either way , It's a ridiculous amount of guitar for the money.