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Strings / Is it aging or what?
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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 Strings / Is it aging or what?
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Augustine blue have always been my favorite strings. There would be only very few hypothetical cases where I could imagine to not be wanting them, like say if a guitar was overly stiff or couldn´t take the pull at bridge or neck or such.
Still, being far from knowing all what´s out there, in the decades I have sporadically been trying other stuff, and before moving to nowhere land me stocked diverse brands for to check out the matter more consciously.
And now I´m screwed, left with useless sets while having run out of the blue ones. And that in a place where one set of strings comes you in for around 100 bucks and more.
But there is something else that I´m wondering about.
Other makes have ever since been disappointing for me, however it wasn´t such a deal breaker that I couldn´t stand them long enough until they were at least worn out somewhat.
I´m finding myself less and less tolerant against dull and slack strings. Meanwhile, at a point where they take away all the pleasure with a guitar. They just won´t bring out a guitars sonority and wobble around my right hand finger tips like clothesline.
And the sensation is getting worse and worse.
For instance the Hannabach "super high tension" that I have a bunch of sets left over from ... I used to remember them as somewhat firm and striking, but now they are like gauze to me.
And the little of spark that the makes bring at the table when fresh, diminishes in no time (while Augustines stay crisp almost forever). In fact it´s after years in the Diaspora and after having run out of the real thing that I start to understand why others talk of restringing all the time. No wonder, with such crappy material.
Is it me? Does one´s perception, both hearing and haptic change with age? (I still hear well enough to compete against a strobe, though.) Or maybe some other subjective sense?
Or could it possibly be that the makers´ recipe of ground material has been exchanged with some cheaper alternative ... in these days of squeezing off yet the last of micro penny?
Got an idea?
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Mar. 20 2018 9:12:09
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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RE: Strings / Is it aging or what? (in reply to Ruphus)
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Wasn´t it on the foro, when we made clear that strings don´t age, unless worn through playing?
I have never had corrosion on my guitars, except of once. With a guy with sopping wet hands of acidy sweat. (That was crazy. Next time you opened the case, strings were corroded.)
Other than that, there is only rubbing off (getting black fingertips from the basses).
Ah, and there was that eerie incidence, when the Ramirez had been put in a trunk with approximately ~ 90° C or so. Naturally, that or maybe some hundred thousands of years of lying around can lead to molecular re-arranging in the Nylon and corresponding uneveness in diameter, hence intonation in the bin.
My hearing ... Well, you never really know.
But so far it appears as if it was still in good condition. I can hear through the windows how my dogs move around in the yard, also guard a bit about the strays outside (all the time intervening, when shady folks approach them or try to attack), I detect noise others can only hear when they focus on it, and as mentioned can tune with partials that a strobe will stand still.
It actually appears as if I could be hearing freakingly well, inspite of a slight tinnitus on the left , but you got me thinking.
OK, just made a listening test online.
So, looks as if it is not hearing issue.
If you guys say that strings havn´t become worse, then maybe it´s my haptics.
But shouldn´t things be the other way round?
If all those brands feel slack to me, my hand must have become more rough, more insensible. Innit?
But to the opposite. My hands used to be like tools. Daily holding of dental work pieces, hot steel while milling it. Breaking hardwoods, bricks and stones with fists and such (knuckles looking like marbles then).
Today the hands are pussy. If I´d bang them against a wall, they would for sure break.
And unlike decades before, these days fingertips hurt a bit, when playing a longer session. They are definitely more flimsy these days.
I´m puzzled. 
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Mar. 20 2018 16:04:47
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