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.

De momento no he cambiado desde hace mucho tiempo de modelo de cuerdas. Me encanta su sonido, y sobre todo su facilidad de tocar, notándose mas blandas al tacto que el resto, lo que facilita notablemente tocar la guitarra cuando no tienes tanta fuerza o eres aficionado. Además, de momento no he tenido ninguna rotura, las limpio siempre después de tocar y les aplico dunlop 65 de vez en cuando para lubricarlas, y ningún problema. Duran mucho, las suelo cambiar por tiempo, no por desgaste.

Ottime corde, suonano bene e le consiglio

Ottime corde per chitarra acustica. Rapporto qualità prezzo molto elevato. Le ho montate sulla mia Martin D41 e le ho tenute almeno un mesetto abbondante, prima di cambiarle. Suonando quasi ogni giorno un'oretta o più credo che si siano comportate molto bene, ottime per il fingerpicking e flatpicking. Ovviamente qualità Martin che on si discute.

Love the strings! They sound awesome. They have a really great tone - not too bright, not too "tinny" sounding like some strings can sound. The extra-lights are the way to go for my Sigma 12-string. I'll buy these strings again.

自分の指先にあった固さで、とても弾きやすいですね。