Official Luthiers Forum!

Elsewhere in the online universe there's a vast array of opinions and claims about the sonic qualities of various brands of strings, of which there are many.

Does anybody know how many manufacturing sources of strings exist and whether there's much variability in their content? I get a sense that a whole bunch of string sources are packagers of the same wires with different labels and which have their attendant enthusiasts. Sorta' like trying to figure out which feather helps Dumbo fly better.

I hesitate to pose this question on an enthusiast's forum; I fear what I'd get for responses are the same brand addictions being circulated.

Thanks!

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Peter Havriluk

Many manufacturers are not indeed manufacturers and as you suspect Peter and instead repackagers and resellers.

What a string sounds like is subjective and a personal preference thing as well. But I use all these various makers of strings wares since we encourage our clients to bring their own new set to us if they want anything we don't stock not in terms of their BS promises but empirical data, how specifically they intonate on the strobe. I can see and measure differences in various strings.

I can tell you that for example super slinky 9's from Ernie Ball intonate about 2 cents for the high strings differently than say D"addario etc. On maker of strings in our experience have QC issues and we often when encountering a problem that someone brings us if they are using these strings we find the strings can be ****. We even bought a digital microscope to take pics of loose and inconsistent windings on some brands to show the pics to clients when we find what was causing their tuning and intonation issues.

Tone wise the materials such as phosphor bronze will make a tone difference consistently and there is that. But all things being equal from brand to brand I don't find any tone differences and it is not unusual for someone like D'Addario to make strings for other brands.

But back to my data. Yes there are differences that can be seen on turning gear. I recently went from D'Addario 10's on all my electrics to Super Slinky 9's what I played when I was a kid because of arthritis in my hands and big bends starting to be painful after I play.... That did the trick but all of my electrics, about 2 dozen of them had to be set-up again because of slightly different tension of 9's that reduced relief and lowered action a bit too low on some of the guitars.

This is why as someone who sets-up hundreds of guitars annually we ask people to bring their own preferred strings if we do't stock them because it makes a difference in the set-up from both brand to brand as well as gauge.

Some of the intonation differences can be much more than 2 cents and can be heard. When I built guitars, acoustic guitars I intonated them since intonation is fixed for D'Addario the most popular sting on the planet.

FYI on my acoustics I like Martin Retro Monel strings a lot. I've turned dozens of players onto them and they love them too especially the gigging musicians. These strings sound played in when they are brand new and continue to sound the same way for their entire life span.