Santa Cruz Parabolic Tension Acoustic Guitar Strings Mid Tension

Impressive! Love, love, LOVE these strings. I originally bought them to try a mid-tension set on my Taylor 814ce after seeing a positive review on Tony Polecastro's podcast. Taylors love Elixir strings. (and I do too), but I'm open to trying anything that can improve my guitar's tone. I was so pleasantly shocked by the enhanced tone, brightness and volume I was able to get that I bought a couple more sets to put on my Taylor 214ce and 114ce, with similar results.Although Santa Cruz strings are double the usually price for quality strings, they are clearly better engineered strings. They have a "slinky, slacks" feel that amps up the playability of your guitar. My experience with strings that have this quality is you loose brightness. Not with these. And they keep that "fresh string" sound for months.Biggest surprise: putting them on a used, cheap Martin 00X1 Java Mahogany I bought as a "beater" guitar (you know, the one you take with you when you want to play at the park or beach, not your nice one). It had a high action problem. I was debating the cost-effectiveness of getting my luthier to work on it. On a whim, I slapped these bad boys on (the low tension ones). Problem solved. And it sounds incredible.Did the same thing on my friend's Takamine GS 330, another inexpensive guitar with solid top and laminate back and sides. It also had high action. Same results: improved action and sparkly bright, vibrant tone.Highly recommend you try these out. I love to know if others

For eighteen bucks I felt a little foolish but, alas, no regrets! Often I use the Martin Retro or Monel, Elixir, D'Adarrio, or Earthwood. The Santa Cruz are a blend of these -I am inclined to say they capture all the best qualities. What I like best is the tonal separation of each string and the uniform blend of any type of chord shape I've tried.On my Guild 140 OM-CE the improvement on action is subtle but remarkable (and the professional setup of this guitar is great).Though I have not measured the diameter of either string set, I find they seem heavier than one might expect for low or medium tension ratings but with the same fullness of tone I would expect from a .13. - .56 set.In terms of Low vs. Medium tension:Low: I prefer the Low tension on smaller body guitars where focused on finger style or lighter attack strummer. The action and intonation is excellent and very conducive to subtle variations. The Medium tensions do not provide that level of flexibility on OM and OOO in my experience.Medium: For dreads, Lows will likely let you down with a fuller attack (as opposed to, say, Martin Monel that play great at 12 - 52 on dreads) They sound fine but do not have the same robust feel of the Medium tension. Medium is also the better bet if moving between open G and open E in terms of durability (though I agree with other reviewers that significant shifts in tuning cost longevity).So, it may be apparent I ended up with two three packs since I have a fair amount of play experience with both tensions. No doubt they are a splurge. Best used for times when I know I will be spending a lot of focused time playing in a relatively short time span. Earthwood and Martin Retro or Monel will get close for half the price, but they will not get you the same experience, sounds, or enjoyment of the Santa Cruz.

These are the best sounding strings I’ve ever played with that said they are expensive, I’m guessing because their coated, but their durability is on par with all the other strings I’ve used. For me they only last about a month or so on my daily driver before the strings begin to breakdown. But otherwise they feel great and they sound fantastic. But maybe not 10 bucks more then the other expensive strings that I normally use.I wish they would maybe offer an uncoated option to make them a little cheaper. Having a coating that makes them resistant to corrosion for up to 6 months is nice.. but when you play as much as I do apparently strings just don’t last that long. I only get about a month out of a set of strings until they start coming apart and you can’t buy any single strings to replace ones that break so something to consider as well.I can’t say enough though how much I like how these strings sound though. They really are worth giving a try. I’ll buy them again for my other guitars that I don’t play as much.

Considering the the price, and the reviews I had read, I had hoped these strings would last two to three times as long as my usual brand. Unfortunately, they did not. Normally, I change strings every two weeks, because I play in several alternate tunings, and I'm aware that re-tuning like this tends to shorten string life. I did leave on these on for three weeks, but after that, they were dead, and even though I wiped them down after playing, they looked dead as well, much like uncoated strings usually do. In addition, I felt that they were less flexible than a similar gauge, and lacked a certain amount of new string brightness, especially in the trebles, right out of the package.

I am the last person in the world to get drawn in by guitar string hype. However after purchasing regular old guitar strings for my Martin I saw somebody playing the strings on the same model of Martin guitar and the guitar sounded terrific. I took a chance and shelled out the money for the strings. They are phenomenal. They are higher gauge than the heavy strings I had. I like my Martin sounding being a dreadnought. The tension on the strings are perfect and they seem heavier gauge then my heavies. I did not scrutinize the package yet but on first glance I do not see the gauges listed.They are very smooth and make the Martin sing. they have a very nice smooth feeling on the fingers. The strings are very bendable and even though my prior plain vanilla heavy strings could be strummed they cannot be bent like these strings. Anyway I hope they last a long time so I don't have to buy another set LOL. But this will be my acoustic string of choice going forward.