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.

I was a little hesitant at first but so glad I took the chance on the Amarok, very solid guitar for the price point, however there are some compromise.

It arrived on time, the setup was mediocre at best, it needed to be professionally set up due to the guitar nut binding and being cut not deep enough, ok not a deal breaker but sucks a £450 guitar would need another £100 to get it playing right.

The biggest gripe was I've used EMGs for decades, I know what to expect when plugging an EMG equipped guitar into an amp but these sounded off. Upon a closer inspection my luthier told me they have used cheap 500k pots instead of the 25k pots required, also the imput jack needed to be replaced has it wasn't making a good connection. There are youtube videos going into detail about these issue.

All in all it's got alot of potential but seems to be plagued by the use of cheap components (wiring) and lack of a good setup. The youtube video was from 5 years ago an the jack an 500k pots was mentioned then and it's still the same now.

I'm currently emailing EMG now about to order a solderless kit has they have responded saying 500k should never have been used.