Harley Benton Amarok-6 BKNT Flame Burst

The specs on this guitar for the price are great, you won't find a better bargain that's for sure. That being said, the quality control could be a lot better and the setup upon receiving said instrument was among the worst I've encountered. There are extremely noticeable tooling marks on most of the fret edges above the 15th fret, which for any guitar honestly seems ridiculous, my HB JA-60 cost about 1/3rd of the price and was handled with more care, as was my TE-20. Now the setup like stated above was honestly just horrible, the action was so high that it was unplayable. I will give HB the benefit of doubt though because this guitar did also sit in a warm delivery truck all day, not to mention the climate changes it had endured shipping from Germany. However, the nut was cut extremely high, enough to where any note on the 1st fret would instantly be sharp. After taking a file to it the problem was remedied, but as ALSO stated above I've bought HB guitars for 1/3 the price and not had as bad of an issue.

Now that the negatives are out of the way, this is a BEAUTIFUL guitar for the price, and after it was set up plays just as beautifully, the bridge is awesome and so are the locking tuners! The neck is unexpectedly thick, which I don't at all mind just don't expect an Ibanez style profile. The pickups are good, but they're just not my style I would prefer the EMG 81/60 set or 57/66 set. If you're considering buying this guitar, just expect to put a little bit of work into it.

This guitar ennoys me. It feels great, sounds pretty good and looks great from a distance.
The frets are perfect, construction and build feels great. The pickups are passive design but with an added active preamp. They are hotter than a PAF, but not super hot. Neck shape is comfortable, a bit wide, flat, not thin at all. Reminds me a bit of the neck shape of ESP EII's.

My main frustration with this guitar is that there are some pretty obvious finish flaws that could have been prevented. On the front of the headstock there is some glue recidu which can't be removed because it is underneat the finish. It is very noticble because the headstock has a dark color. On the back of the body there are more spots and lines of finish or glue that can easily be seen. Same story, it is underneath the finish so it can't be removed. The binding on the body looks like wood, looks great, but at the top of one of the horns of the body this wooden binding seems sanded? It has completely lost it's wood color and looks white. It could be glue as well, glue that has been sanded or polished?

Anyways great guitar build, looks great from a distance but up close it ha some obvious cosmetic flaws which could have been avoided.

So if HB makes another batch, price them 50 euros higher and spent a bit more time on finishing the guitar without any flaws.

I do realize that I could have been unlucky and received that one guitar with the noticeable finish flaws.

first of all, great sound, great look, great playability. Components are top notch, and I really like the versatility of the pickups, though they are very hot. Tone and volume pot are okay. Nut is great, so is the neck finish and frets. Setup was between fine and great (nut setting was perfect, much better than my les paul or my american strato). Action was a little high for this sort of guitar, that's supposed to be shreddable. And there was the little issue. I needed a little more relieve of the neck to bring the action as low as it can get, and I got there, so that's okay. The issue is that now the truss rod is completely released with no tension at all; still the guitar would like to have like 1/2 mm more relieve on the neck. Luckily it's great anyway, but it's weird not to be able to relieve the neck more. all in all, anyway, I love it.

Just totally impressed with this guitar. This is my second Harley Benton.
The first one, the CST-24, while very good, ended up getting a total upgrade on all the electronics. The Amarok is not going to need any upgrades whatsoever. Playability, action, and sound are fantastic. The body cut is deeper than any other guitar that I own. With that, and the neck through design, everything up the neck is easy. Pickups are great sounding. I am not a metal player by any means, so maybe this is coming from a different perspective. Anyway, even though this is expensive for a HB, compared to almost everything out there similar, it blows them away at this price. Love it.