Harley Benton Valuestrings EL 9-42

When I saw that these strings only cost €1,5 I thought that they would be absolutely useless. However, I was still curious to see if my judgemental attitude towards them was correct, so I bought these and a pair of 10-52.

None of the strings had any rust or other issues, but I can't really judge the overall "build quality" fairly as I have only bought two packs of strings so far.

The first thing I noticed when I slapped them onto a guitar was that I got much worse ringing from headstock (the part of the strings that go from the nut to the tuners) than I usually have with my D'addario strings. I don't know why this is, but I really needed to tape the strings to be able to record anything without them ringing.

Another thing I noticed is that it seems like these strings produce lower output than my regular strings. I guess this could be caused by using thinner core gauge or that they use more nickel than usual (because it's cheaper, I guess), but this is just my own theories. These strings also have bit thinner tone.

The useable lifespan seemed to be around 3-4 weeks at most (if you only play 1-2 hours a day like me). If you play more than this I guess you get around 2 weeks of playability out of them. After that they start sounding quite dull and dead.

I still feel like I can't complain too much about strings that are this cheap. They are definitely better than I expected, but that's only because I didn't even expect them to play at all pretty much.

I could maybe see myself buying a bunch of these just to have as backup if I don't have any other strings to change to, but I wouldn't use them for recording or playing live. They are better suited for just practicing at home or jamming with friends etc. They could be great for beginners who practices a lot and don't have a lot of cash to spend on strings.

All-in-all; I would give them three stars, taking the price in consideration.

När något är nästan gratis så är det svårt att kritisera. För pengarna det kostar, fantastiskt! Som gitarrsträng, inte jättebra och inget att rekommendera som "the one to use", det finns massvis av mycket bättre strängar, men som reserv för att byta en sträng på giget eller i replokalen så funkar dessa utmärkt.
Jag köper ändå dessa eftersom jag bygger och fixar en hel del med gitarrer, och när man skruvar isär och ihop en massa gånger så är det surt att sabba ett set Paradigm (som jag VERKLIGEN rekommenderar ALLA att testa) för +170:- utan att ha spelat skiten ur dem.
HB-strängarna ligger ett par set i min gigbag och en hel hög i min verktygslåda, de funkar som reserv och test men inget jag strängar upp en gitarr jag tänker använda live med.