Harley Benton CST-24 Black Cherry Flame DLX

Build quality is comparable to PRS that are much much more expensive. Flawless finish of both lacquer and binding. A fretboard is almost perfect. Due to my personal preferences I had to polish the frets for better look more than playability. The neck pickup is an amazing all purpose humbucker with coil split capabilities. The bridge one is great for classic rock and blues. I will change it for some with slightly higher output. The wood sounds perfect with an extremely long sustain. It sounds thick, juicy and perfectly balanced for my taste. You can play on everything from jazz to heaviest metal with great clarity and tightness even at dropped tunes. Tuning keys are very good, keeps tune and have quite precise feeling. Heavily recommended !!!

The Harley Benton CST24 in Black Cherry Flame ... Where should I start? Let's start with the Pros because they outweigh the cons definitely. It's a great guitar for the price. Finishing awesome, playability good. That was the short version.

Pros: Beautiful instrument that feels way more in value than you pay for it. It was properly packed and just minor tuning needed (although making the way from Germany to the UK). The sound out of the box is way better than any other instrument in that price range I have played so far and can hold up with Fender Mexico versions or Epiphone Custom Shops. The intonation was almost spot on. No string buzzing or anything like that. Action was really low and the neck itself is really fast. Great.
Get one! Especially this finish is very beautiful.

Cons:
There are, as expected, a few issues that need to be addressed in an honest review. The tuners are not good. You can turn them and turn them and maybe at some point something happens. But replace them aftermarket with some Graphtech locking tuners and you are fine and it doesn't break the bank. The nut was in a weird angle and the cutouts for the strings haven't been done properly, so the high E-string almost popped off when bending a full step. the B-string ... similar. The fretboard is dry, but nothing that a bit of lemon oil couldn't fix.

Summary:
I wish that sort of quality would have existed when I started playing guitar 25 years ago. I had to deal with a Strat copy from our local dealer, that was more expensive, had the weight of a Jazz Bass and never stayed in tune.
What Harley Benton offers here is great value for money and specially as a beginner or someone that likes modding guitars - this instrument is a fantastic starting point.

Great Instrument for the money! I have sent this one back, although I prefer the look of it. I have a Amber Flame as well, that did not have the above issues and I will give the CST 24 HB a try as well. Let's see which one makes the cut.

The customer service of Thomann is outstanding and quick and the HB Team answers every question about the instrument before you buy and within 14 days (in the UK) you can send it back at no cost (if the guitar is not damaged by you) if you don't like it.

In general, it is a very well-built guitar for 1/5 of a price of an original custom SE 24 model - that was the main reason for me to try this instrument.
Out-of-the-box it wasn't absolutely flawless. Frets were not polished, several frets had relatevely deep notches, obstructing from bending the high E-string, seemed like someone on the factory in Vietnam levelled the frets by a hammer after the strings had been attached;-) Lacquer on the back side of the neck also was't perfectly polished with some hand prints on it. Fretboard was absolutely dry with spots of glue here and there... So before plugging the guitar into my amp I had to spend a several hours polishing frets, sanding and lemonoilng the fretbord.
Anyway, overall build quality of the guitar body and neck is really good, its nice to hold it in your hands. The body is just beautiful, the guitar is considerably lighter than a full-body LPs, all frets access is easy, neck is quite slim and narrow compared to mentioned above prs SE, very playable, I should say. Tuners are OK, they do the job.
If you decide to buy this guitar pay attention to a very 'specific' prs-type bridge setup: before you try to adjust string action by large coin-slot bolts be sure you fully unscrew small black mensuration-setup screws! And by the way you can't properly setup the action before you complete your scale length setup - when you move the bridge the string action changes. So the whole procedure of of setting up this guitar can take an hour of your precious time.
Pickups are not an absolute junk, they are quite decent, but sound a bit weak compared to traditional Dimarzio or SD humbackers, and for sure, being coil-splitted do not sound like real single-coils. The guitar gives you a lot of different intonations, a lot of room for experiments, but you can't substitute a LP and a Strat by this one guitar.
To wrap it up, its a great value-for-money guitar, reasonably priced - not only for beginners, with no real competition in its price rage. Just keep in mind its price and your expectations will be met when you receive it :-)

***UPDATE***

Thomann sent me a new wraparound bridge. This new one works way better than the first one. The adjustable saddle for the B and G string stays in place and I no longer have notes choking out. I LOVE this guitar now. Thanks Thomann!

I fell in love with this guitar the moment i saw it. I wanted a relatively inexpensive backup guitar to have on hand. I will start with the "pros" but please continue reading, because there were some major "cons"

PROS
- Beautiful guitar. The second I unpacked it, I knew it was something special. There is no way this guitar only cost $240 (with an additional $80 shipping....WOOF)

- Decent sounding pickups (for the price). A little boxy and flubby, but definitely usable.

- It played real smooth right out the box. Had to do a couple minor adjustments, but who cares? It came from Germany in the middle of winter. You have to expect it to move a little.

- Tuners aren't locking, but they do a decent job.

- The single-coil tap is a cool feature. Many options.

CONS
- The wrap-around bridge...Good concept. Poorly executed. There is a saddle for the G and B string that can be adjusted more to correct the intonation. If that saddle is slightly out of place in a clockwise manner, my B string notes choke out when I bend. I have to carefully line up this saddle, tighten it WITHOUT knocking it out of alignment, in order to keep my B string from choking out. It took A LOT of time and money to figure out this problem. Also, I've tried FIVE different replacement wrap-around bridges from Amazon. NONE of them work for various reasons. So, you are at the mercy of the bridge they give you. (I've been trying to buy extra bridges from Thomann to have as spares, but I'm having no luck)

- There must have been something funky going on with the press that was stamping out my frets because several of them had a slight gouge running down the middle. I had to have my guitar completely releveled before I could really play it (another $75 added to my cost)

- Not only was the bridge intonation saddle wonky, but the bridge itself feels cheap and lightweight.

- Difficult to find a hardshell case for this guitar. Had to buy one from Thomann. $65 case (nice) with a $60 shipping fee (BOO).

So, in closing...

This guitar is FINALLY in working conditional after a LOT of headache, confusion, and sacrifices. I thought I was getting away with a steal ($240 guitar).

But, shipping fee ($80), case shipping fee ($60), fret relevel ($75), frequent trips to my guitar tech to fix the bridge ($75), with the additional time and energy put into finding a replacement bridge...I'm not sure I would buy this guitar again. Every time I've ever purchased a guitar online without playing it, I've been burned. And it kinda happened again.

Just get ready to bury a LOT of time, money, and energy into this guitar if you buy one.

P.S. Now that I have the bridge situation figured out (even though I'd still like a replacement bridge) , I dropping in some locking tuners and some Seymour Duncan JB and Jazz pickups. It's a tone monster now. A $240 guitar is closer to $700 at this point (gulp)