Martin MA130 Authentic Acoustic - SP - Silk & Steel Custom ( 11½-47 ) 41Y18MA130

Out of all the strings I've ever tried, these are hands down my favourite. Bought them out of curiosity, but they are simply wonderful. This obviously going to depend entirely on the guitar you use, your playing style, and your personal preference, but I must say I love them. Being the first silk and steel strings I've tried, I'm now curious to try some other brands, to see if it's the general silk and steel concept that I like so much, or these specific strings... The ease of playing factor is certainly a bonus, and if you're coming from nylon or electric then I can see why these would be nice, but for me it's the sound that does it. For context, I have these on a solid spruce topped dreadnought with plenty of projection. I expected them to be kind of muted and nylon-y, but that isn't true at all It's true that they are darker than bronze strings, but they aren't at all "muddy" sounding. For one thing, they still have that "shimmer" that steel strings have when playing open chords, which steel guitarists often miss when playing a nylon string and finding a all their G, Cadd9, em7 etc. chords just sounds dull. On the other side, nylon players usually find that the raw power of open chords is lost as soon as you move much past the 3rd fret. In that sense, even though the tone is very different, I can see why people compare these to nylons because what they share is an even-ness throughout the neck, meaning you can play open chords and closed higher up the neck chords in the same song and not feel like you either have to hold back on your open chords, or that the closed chords lack "power". In this respect it's kind of like playing a nylon guitar, except that the open chords are still great. In terms of their tone, it's a more pointed, midrange-y sound. I think that's perhaps why despite being less bright, they don't lose any clarity. People often advise getting these strings for fingerstyle playing. That may well be true, but I've been playing them almost exclusively with a pick. I've found their tone is an absolute pleasure for single note playing, they're pointed, and clear, and you can "shape" each note. I actually find myself playing "lead" guitar all the time now, on an acoustic!. I think the light gauge and ease of vibrato adds to the appeal here, but I've played with super light bronze strings before and not enjoyed it nearly as much! My main advice would be try them, for under a tenner, if nothing else they'll give you a new experience playing, and if you don't share my enthusiasm you can always switch back. One last thing, if you're a lead player, try putting on these strings and using a really thick pick, like a >1mm tortex or something, you'll be surprised as to the tone you can get.

I bought these in march (it's now late October and the high e has just broke) and they've been great. They have a beautiful, clear, warm sound. They're very durable, I play a mix of fingerstyle and regular, and a lot of the songs I play are very rough on strings, but they survived through everything until now! They're really great on my fingertips too, a lot less painful after playing for hours straight. They hold their tuning really well too and have been fine being tuned up and down too! I'm really impressed and will definitely be getting again :)

I put these 11-52 gauge strings on my Blueridge BR163 acoustic guitar which is a 000 with 25.7" scale, and they are OK .. but nothing exciting. According to Martin the point of these strings is that they have a flexible core, so I was expecting less string tension, but for me they dont feel much different to conventional strings, but they are .. OK PS : I have since tried the Martin Silk and Steel on my Larrivee and they are superb, less tension and fabulous tone, great for bending and vibrato.

Iv used these for years on all my guitars, due to the silk core they are very easy to fret, so if you have delicate vintage instruments, you may want to try these out of if you dont play guitar every day so you dont build up the calouses on your fingertips and you want the string to feel easy under your finger tips these may just be the strings for you however obviously they are not as loud as regular guitar strings, in my opinion they work well on 12 string guitar, i have 12 fret to body 12 string which is quite difficult to play with regular12s on it so i swapped to silk and steel and found it so much easier to play it was like night and day

Best sounds and value for me - I have these strings (M170) on all 3 of my acoustics. The tone and playability of these lighter strings - even on a dreadnought, really pleases my ear and fingers. I play a lot (at least 30 hours a week) so I go through quite a few sets but the deal on amazon for the multi packs works out at just over £3 per set. I figure I get 10 to 12 hours max from each set before I notice them going off but remind myself that going to see that amount of time of premiership football would cost nearly a £1000. Crikey. You can buy strings that last a lot longer, generally speaking for approx £15 per set, then you have to balance out the tone and feel they give you versus the longevity. I can play for many hours at a time with these lighter strings and feel that due to the quality of them I can play and bend the strings as aggressively as I want. When they do start to go 'off' you will notice the tone and pitch begin to slip - then it's time to change to your next set so you can begin all over again. At £3.30 per set (multibuy) this is a no brainer for me.

If you're wandering, I'm an avid guitar player, having mastered grade 7 at 15. Strings are an important part of a guitarist's life (surprisingly ;P ) and everyone just wants a direct answer, or to be told which one they want. The unfortunate truth is, that you will never find the answer to "The best strings" question, as it is a personal thing. However, what can be shared is the quality of the product, and whether you may want this particular one. First of all, I play all type of music, be it classical, spanish, jazz, rock, metal, funk. So what I've looked for in my many years of experience, are just warm, flexible steel string (I know, nylon with spanish guitar or classical would be better but you can't have everything) guitar wires :) My acoustic doesn't have a great deal of tone, the way it's built. The trebles are slightly colder and the basses not full enough for my preference. but I'd require a small fortune to amend this via a new guitar as I am left handed and so "the struggle is real". Thus I conclude that I search for strings that are warm sounding with a lot of tone and expression to compensate. In a nut shell, these are the strings that do the job of warm sounding high quality strings with a lot of tone. Really nice set. Remember their price is pretty much because of the add on system, and I buy in bulk so it's not a problem for me.

Good

I have been buying these strings for about 10 years now on a regular basis. Some reviewers state that the strings quickly loose their sheen and I can confirm that after 3-4 hours of vigorous strumming, that they do indeed loose that "Newly strung" sound and a little of the volume that comes with it. Having said this, I have tried various other brands over the years, sometimes for up to £12 a pack, and I have never played/ listened to any particular strings that were much better than these Martin's. I would also suggest that the loss of sheen and how quickly this happens with any set of acoustic strings depends heavily on the playing style of the owner. I also re-string on a very regular basis (before every performance) and having these quality striings at such a great price enables me to do that! Also, I have never experienced the strings being packaged/labelled wrongly for as long as I have been buying them. It wouldn't bother me much if they were labelled wrongly, as long as I still get all six strings in some order, but I can imagine that this would annoy some people!