Harley Benton SC-450Plus HB Vintage Series

I've had mixed experience with HB before and thought really hard should I order this one. The one I had before (hollow double cut) had awful setup from factory, I think couple of frets were not set properly in the neck and the pickups had really muffled sound with loads of hum.

This one is completely different. Setup felt quite good and I think I only need to lower the bridge little bit as the action is little high close to neck pickup, but intonation was nearly spot on from the factory. I haven't yet noticed any raised frets and the overall finish is perfect on this unit. This guitar also sounds amazing. The split-table coils offer nice tonal options and it sounds clear with minimum amount of hum with my setup.

Only small grievance I had was the pick-guard color, witch didn't match any other plastics in the guitar and looked really cheap. Luckily it's easily removable so I took it off straight away and the guitar looks much better without it.

So shortly if you have good luck of the draw or can do the setup including fret leveling by yourself, you can get guitar that looks and sounds like a guitar thrice the price. But as always with these cheaper guitars there's bigger tolerances in quality control and you can also get a basket case that requires professional setup before it's really playable.