I wanted to leave this review for a while, but feel now I can give an informed opinion.
This guitar has been the most mixed bag HB I've had so far. There are some issues to get out of the way first.
1. Neck. The neck feels great, nice satin finish, but the fret job on this one is easily the worst of any HB I've purchased. It was simply awful. Fret sprout was terrible, Very rough frets, totally uneven, requiring a full fret level and dress. The nut was poorly cut and biting the strings. Machine heads are satisfactory, and work fine.
So after addressing the frets, and changing the nut, what do we have?
Quite simply, a stunning strat type guitar, that looks great and sounds even better. Without exaggeration, this HD sounds more 'stratty' than some of my other F brands. Beautiful, glassy, chiming tones, every position has distinct strat sounds that are a joy to hear. The alnico5's are punching way above their weight for this price point. Full size pots on my model also, pickup switch feels good, substantial.
All in all, serious issues aside, this is a great guitar (now), I almost sent it back because of the frankly atrocious fret work, ( brexit and covid put me off the idea), I'm glad I didn't however.
In the studio, I have found myself reaching for this over and over whenever I need that strat sound.
So good and bad, but overall the guitar is well worth every penny, but just be aware, HBs rock, but sometimes can mean some work to get right.