Harley Benton CST-24HB Tortoise Flame

Pros: The Body and finish is beautiful. Flawless. The pickups are great clean...so-so with gain. The guitar sustains amazingly well.

Cons:, the bridge is missing the tiny hex screw that locks the bridge in place on the treble side.
Seeing the guitar came with Wilkinson Pickups and not Roswell as advertised, I think I got an older one with one of the first attempts at crafting roseacer...lots of dents in the treated wood at the 1st fret. numerous imperfections in shaping up the fretboard and at the base of it. Dry as a bone. A little fretboard treatment improved it, but the feel of it is like it is made of a plastic composite. Not sure how heat chemically changed maple in this fashion.
The nut was atrocious on the treble side. Looking down the fretboard from the bridge, It is sloped too low to the right, so much that whomever cut the nut just put a notch in the E string to barely hold in place. The B string was a little better, but not by much. The result? Sitar noise with open string because the slot could not be properly cut with so little material on the treble side. I was surprised this was present on a guitar that spent a week in quality check.

I DON'T want to send this back. I sent an email asking for them to send a new nut and a locking screw, and I would fix it myself. Still waiting for a simple response to this after a day.
In purchasing this guitar, I reminded them I am in the states and that I'm not expecting perfection for spending 264 dollars shipped but expect a playable guitar with a reasonable amount of flaws. I also said future purchases would be based on the quality. Sorry, I can't buy anymore sight unseen from Thomann after my experience. This guitar spent a WEEK in quality before leaving...and the nut is awful.
Hopefully, I am sent a nut and the tiny locking screw, so I dont have to go searching all over creation for the right size for both.

I'm sorry I had to post this review, I wanted so badly to post a five star, yet the nut almost had me giving this a two. I mean, this is the MOST BASIC QUALITY CHECK, NO?

This arrived with sky high action and frets all over the place. The fit and finish was not great with black spatters under the sunburst, overflowing glue marks and poor sanding of the f-holes. The good customer service at Thomann gave me a discount, as this should definitely have been a B-stock or not left the shop as it was.
After trussrod adjustments and some serious fret leveling, the guitar now plays great. Action is a bit difficult to get perfect with a fixed bridge, but I got it to a place which is comfortable. The best thing - the sound! I've had these Roswell humbuckers in a few other guitars and not enjoyed them, but they work really well in this guitar. Deep, mellow jazz and crisp bridge tones. It's also a comfortable shape for a hollowbody - not too big. All in all I'm happy with it now, but be prepared that you might need to spend some money/time setting it up and tweaking it.

I ordered this hoping for more of a PRS look than what I actually got. Curves/carves were not as prominent as the pictures show, so the PRS aesthetic was lost to me. After putting those feelings aside and just looking at it from a quality perspective, it did look pretty nice, although there were quite a few glue drops inside the guitar, easily visible through the F holes. The F holes themselves looked okay if you don’t look at them from the side, as there was gunk visible on the underside of the top just inside the F holes.

As far as playability, it felt fairly nice. Nice thin neck, and the frets were in good shape. The tuners were pretty stiff, and there was a noticeable buzz on the G string that was not from the frets, so something in the saddle may have been loose. Pickups are not high output so they will need a bit of a boost if you want a heavy sound, but they sound decent clean.

All in all, it’s not a bad guitar. After tempering my expectations, I decided it was a nice guitar for the money, but not for me (though I ultimately couldn’t quite get over the difference between the pictures and what I got, subtle as it may have been, as I see that as false advertising).

Upon opening the box, I was so delighted with the finish on this guitar, however this is where the problems started...Dont get me wrong its not a disaster as I decided not to send the guitar back as the finish on this one is superb. To start with the guitar would not tune up at all, so this got me wondering if we had a neck problem, so it was a strip down and an investigation....the neck needed to be set up as it had a bow in it from Robin Hood me thinks, and the frets were all out of kilter, some high, some low, and some just a mess, so I completed the task of leveling the frets, (once I got the neck sorted ) and once crowned and polished ( this takes a bit of time but its worth the efforts) its was a case or restringing and final set up...its took me around 2 days of fettling to do this and I am now left with a loverly Guitar that sits on my wall proud and looking like a piece of artwork.....The point here is, if you buy a guitar as inexpensive as this ( I will not use the word 'cheap' as it has different connotations ) then its worth putting the effort in to get it how you want it, if your not confident to do it yourself, then find a local Luthier who will help you, it transforms the guitar..Overall good buy.....