Strings: do you get what you pay for?

Tannin · May 2023

Do you get what you pay for?

I just spent wasted an hour sorting my string notes into price categories. Are cheap strings any good? Are expensive strings worth the extra? Looking over the results, the answer to both questions is clearly "sometimes".

* For £6 and under we have 7 sets, two are screaming bargains, three are good ordinary products at a good price, and only two were below par.

* 15 sets sell for £7. Just one bad set amongst them, and no less than 5 of my particular favourites, with the other nine all perfectly decent. Clearly, £7 is a sweet spot in the market.

* At £8 all 9 strings are decent and playable, with a couple being out-and-out stars.

* Of the 11 sets In the £9 to £10 category, one is poor value, the Ernie Balls are a bit over the odds, and the remaining nine range from fair value through to outstanding.

* From £11 to £14, four of the five sets are coated or otherwise special and worth what they ask if that's what you want, leaving the unlovely Stringjoy Naturals as a reminder that expensive does not always equal good.

* In the £15 and over category, there are 8 string sets. Only two strike me as worth the money.

The moral of the story is, if in doubt, spend £7 if you can't find something you like with a choice between Rotosound, La Bella, Darco, Augustine, Galli, Adamas, Martin, SIT, and John Pearse, you are hard to please. You can get good strings for less, and it can be worth paying three or four times that much if you want something special, but £7 is all you need to spend.

£5

* SIT Phosphor Bronze. Perfectly decent strings. Bargain!

£6

* Dunlop Phosphor Bronze. Easy on the wallet, hard on the fingers and the ears.

* Fender. Nothing special, perfectly decent, very cheap.

* Moonshiners. Better than decent. Bargain!

* SIT Golden Bronze. Good value.

* Magma GA140PB. A little lackluster.

* GHS Vintage Bronze. Good strings in their own way.

£7

* John Pierce Pure Nickel. Crazy-low price for nickels, and perfectly OK.

* Rotosound Jumbo King Good ordinary strings.

* La Bella Phosphor Bronze. Nice.

* Darco 80/20. Excellent strings, bargain price.

* Augustine Phosphor Bronze. Lovely strings, great value.

* Galli LS. I love these!

* Adamas Composite. Remarkably good strings.

* Galli RA1254 80/20. Decent, not as nice as their phosphor bronze ones though.

* Martin Custom Light. What's not to like?

* Martin Flexible Core (Tommy Emmanuel signature). Decent.

* Rotosound Super Bronze contact core. Weird strings.

* Sfarzo Alloy 5109. Awful. Possibly worse than Dunlops.

* GHS Silk and Bronze. Very different sound! For seven quid, why not give them a try?

* SIT Silencers. Good strings, good price.

* John Pearse 80/20. Good.

£8

* Savarez A140L. Decent. Decent price.

* Martin EC Signature. No surprises here.

* Godin A6. Pretty fair.

* Black Diamond N600L. Good sound, last well, good value.

* DR Sunbeam. £8 for these class-leading strings is a bargain.

* La Bella Golden Alloy. Don't let the old-fashioned brand and the low price mislead you, these are good!

* Martin Authentic MA140. All things considered *the* benchmark string. And not expensive.

* SIT Royal Bronze Top-class strings for a very reasonable price.

* John Pearse Phosphor Bronze. Good solid value.

£9

* Dean Markley Blue Steel. A bit dear for what they are.

* Curt Mangan round core. Worth £9 every time.

* D'Addario EJ16. Many people love these and they sell like crazy so they must be decent value. I don't really see it myself.

* GHS Americana. Excellent strings which last and last. Bargain!

* D'Angellico Prohibition Bronze 85/15. £9 is highish for a string that doesn't last so long, but while they are good they are very, very good.

* Ernie Ball Earthwood. A bit much for a decent but not outstanding string.

£10

* D'Addario nickel bronze. A reasonable price for (in my opinion) the best of the nickel strings. Last for ages too.

* Newtone Masterclass round core. Pretty good value if you like the sound.

* Pyramid Western Folk round core. A fair price for an excellent string.

* D'Addario EFT16 Flat Tops. Weird strings. Very good price when you think about it. Not for everyone.

* Pyramid 307 Silver Plated. Worth the money. I've seen Thoman chuck these out at £4 which is insane. (But they wanted $120 postage to Oz. Bugger! I was going to buy lots.)

£11

* Curt Mangan. Fair value for a good-sounding, long-lasting quasi-coated string.

£12

* Rotosound Nexus. Worth it: good sound, last forever.

* Stringjoy Naturals. Very dear for an uncoated hex-core string. Sound pretty bad. Just say no.

£14

* Newtone Masterclass Double Wound. A special price for a special string. That's fair.

* Martin Retros. Good value given their great feel and very long life. (But you may or may not like their sound.)

£15.

* Cleartone. Coated, would be fair value at £10. At £15, no.

* Dogal round core. Outstanding sound and feel would make them worth the crazy money if the bloody things were more reliable. They aren't.

* Stringjoy Foxwoods. Last well in the sense that they sound dead when you first put them on and don't change much. Worth the money? Hell no.

£17

* Elixir Nanoweb. They do last a long time, but at the price you can buy two or three sets of something cheaper and better sounding.

* Santa Cruz Parabolic 75% of the life of Elixirs for the same money, but far superior feel and sound. Worth it.

£19

* Philippe Bosset Acoustique. Very, very expensive for a standard hex core string. And I reckon they are nearly worth it.

£21

* Thomastik-Infeld Plectrum. Good strings. Worth the money? No.

£27

* Optima 24K Gold Plated. Lovely strings. Worth £27? Not really.

(Note that prices are what I paid here in Oz and include tax and postage, rounded down. Most UK prices are a pound or two higher but a few brands are lower. Do you feel lucky?)

mgaw · May 2023

Gabriel Tenorio String Co Boyle Heights LA

just got my delivery today a cut above all others in my opinion

mgaw · May 2023

$25 plus delivery. Seems to evade customs charges as well

Tannin · May 2023

Oh! A new one for me to try out! Round core too. Nice.

Bit of a black mark that their website refuses to tell you how much freight is.

Ouch! Good old test@test.com shows that they charge a whopping $16 US! That brings it to almost £33, which would make them the most expensive strings I have ever seen.

I think I'll pass.

DiscoStu · May 2023

That's some list you got there! Good effort. I've been using Newtone Masterclass and have been really impressed but am looking to try something else so this makes for interesting reading.

guitarjack66 · May 2023

Does string gauge make a difference?

McSwaggerty · May 2023

* D'Addario nickel bronze. A reasonable price for (in my opinion) the best of the nickel strings. Last for ages too.

My recent string of choice, easily worth a Tenner...

Tannin · May 2023

Cheers @DiscoStu The thread at https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/238400/the-modern-string-explorer might be more useful than this one then.

@guitarjack66 difference to what? Price? Not that I've noticed. Raw material cost for a set of strings is probably very small.

@McSwaggerty yes, good aren't they. I have a spare set for my Guild (the only guitar I have which goes better with nickels) but first I have to work through untried sets from SIT and GHS.

guitarjack66 · May 2023

Tannin said:

Cheers @DiscoStu The thread at https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/238400/the-modern-string-explorer might be more useful than this one then.

@guitarjack66 difference to what? Price? Not that I've noticed. Raw material cost for a set of strings is probably very small.

@McSwaggerty yes, good aren't they. I have a spare set for my Guild (the only guitar I have which goes better with nickels) but first I have to work through untried sets from SIT and GHS.

I meant to testing them. Could it be reasonably argued that a brand's 12 gauge sound or play differently to their 10 gauge,for example?

Tannin · May 2023

Sure. They do indeed sound different. How much of that is due to the string itself and how much to the interaction between string and guitar is another question.

I have commented here that Elixir 13s have a better sound than their 12s, and speculated that perhaps this is because the coating has less of an impact on the sound with a larger, heavier string. But that really is just speculation.

Suppose you start with a standard set of 12s. Now compare it with a set of 11s and a set of 13s. The 13s can be too much for a lot of guitars, they sound strangled and breathless. I don't understand the physics of this but I have observed it a number of times.

Or the 11s might be not enough. 11s weigh less than 12s and, on some guitars, a set of 10s or 11s simply doesn't have enough weight to move the top enough.

Another practical example: I don't reckon Santa Cruz mediums are half as good as Santa Cruz lights.

Mellish · May 2023

Of the last 10pack of D'Addario EJ16 that I bought, four sets were really bad.
The supplier would only replace one set. It's amazing, the command some people (me in this case) have over bad language

mgaw · May 2023

Tannin said:

Oh! A new one for me to try out! Round core too. Nice.

Bit of a black mark that their website refuses to tell you how much freight is.

Ouch! Good old test@test.com shows that they charge a whopping $16 US! That brings it to almost £33, which would make them the most expensive strings I have ever seen.

I think I'll pass.

Your loss maybe they sound fantastic feel even better and last for ages

tomjax · May 2023

A big +1 vote for the Adamas composite strings, and they often do a 3 for 2 price of 14quid , which makes them insane value. Always loved them on any guitar.

Paul_C · May 2023

If customers don't specify a brand and don't appear to want to spend a fortune I usually fit Legacy strings (from Strings Direct) and haven't yet had any complaints. I've used some of their electric sets on my own guitars and they seem at least as good as D'Addarios or Ernie Balls.

My guess based on the ball-end colours is that they're something to do with Rotosound, especially as they come with extra top strings (E & B (in the electric sets)) which has saved me a fair bit.

Tannin · May 2023

I've bought some crazy-expensive strings in my time, but $41 USD for one set is a bridge too far. I'll give then a try if they start selling them through a retailer where I can spread that insane postage charge over a few different sets. There are a few US retailers who charge $16 (give or take) including the otherwise excellent Strings and Beyond - but I can buy 8 or 10 sets at once from them. Strings by Mail charge about $8, which is far more realistic.

@tomjax the thing that got me about Adamas is that they are an Ovation brand, and for 30 years Ovation guitars have consistently sounded awful. Why would anyone expect an Ovation string to sound so good?

@Paul_C yes, Legacy are very well-priced, as are Picato. I have it in mind to try a set of each next time I order strings.

tomjax · May 2023

@tanin you're spot on there, but they are most definitely a hidden gem. They do a coated version now too, which is also great value.

Tannin · May 2023

^ Yes. I've seen it at Thomann. (The US retailers I buy them from don't offer that version for some reason.) Mind you, the standard uncoated sets last pretty well so coating seems like an unnecessary luxury, but why not try it?

Thomann have an annoying policy of only shipping export orders by courier. So to order a single $14 set of strings they expect me to pay $120 for DHL to deliver it to my door. (What is wrong with the post office FFS? Back when the world was young and I was in warehouse management, I switched our ship-everything-by-courier policy over to one where we sent small parcels by mail. Yes, it meant that a staff member had to take half an hour out once a day to drive to the post office, but it saved us and/or our customers thousands of dollars a week. (Some things we paid the freight on, other things we on-charged it. Either way it was a huge saving.) And that was in a small company with 20-odd staff.

Anyway, one of these days I'll have enough things I want to buy from Thormann at one time to make it worth ordering from them. $120 split 12 ways is only $10. Or I might get them to send to my in-laws in Croatia (which is in the EU now) who can post it on to me. Only thing is that Croatia has a very high VAT rate, as bad as the UK. Oh well, still cheaper than paying DHL.

They also have 80/20 brass sets which I wouldn't mind trying. And a round core set which might be very interesting.

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Strings: do you get what you pay for?

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