As a religious user of gauge .009 strings I was highly wary of using these for my alternate tunings at first but for going down to Open C/C standard this is a really nice size of string for the job, where a .010 would be too thin to withstand any strenuous playing and an .011 might be a bit too thick to down comfortable lead lines, the .0105 sits nicely in the middle. It's clear when playing chords as no notes get lost amongst others, especially since I am using this on a 7 string and lead lines are smooth and not too bright that they become piercing.