Acoustic players will tell you – putting the best acoustic guitar strings on your guitar is like a cheat code for great tone.
You see, unlike electric guitars, most acoustic guitars don’t have pickups, which means amplifiers and FX pedals are out of the question for changing up your sound.
Fortunately, there’s a simple, and inexpensive solution if you’re trying to cure your GAS – a change of strings. Changing your acoustic guitar’s strings isn’t just an important way to keep it sounding great, it’s also an easy way to change up the tone and character of your guitar.
D'addario Silk & Steel Acoustic Guitar Strings, Light, 11 47
When reviewing these strings, we focused on the tuning stability, sound clarity, sustain, and longevity. This was a longer than usual test as we wanted to give each set 2 weeks on my Martin OOO-15M in order to check for consistency of tone and reliability over a reasonable period of time.
Our Top pick for best acoustic guitar strings were the Ernie Ball Aluminum Bronze strings. They offer some unique tones with classic Ernie Ball quality and reliability. Like all Ernie Ball strings, they’re “made proudly in the USA”, and the quality assurance is amongst the best around, which means that if these are your regular strings, you’ll have unparalleled consistency between packets.
Guitarists looking for a combination of classic tones and great value should consider our Best Budget Option, the D’Addario EJ17 Phosphor Bronze. They offer no gimmicks, no fancy technology, just proven quality and excellent tone. A great choice for all players from beginner to professional.
Country Series / Acoustic Guitar Strings
Our editor’s choice award goes to this set from new kids on the block, Stringjoy. We loved their “Brights” which are an 80/20 bronze alloy, and despite the fact that they’ve only been making strings since 2014, it feels as though they have figured out quickly how to compete with, and even surpass the established brands in terms of tone and quality.
Bronze strings are amongst the most common for acoustic guitar. Because they’re bronze, they are made as an alloy of copper (80%) and tin (20%). Bronze strings offer a cheery, bright tone and huge sustain.
While fresh bronze strings look, and sound great, they do begin oxidizing almost as soon as they’re removed from the packet, and this is accelerated when you play them. They are a cost effective option, but will require frequent changes.
Best Acoustic Guitar Strings For (warm Sound) In 2023
Phosphor bronze strings have a bronze base, but phosphor is included during the alloying process. The net effect of the introduction of phosphor into the alloy is a mellower, and overall warmer sound than straight bronze.
Aluminum bronze strings are one of the newer types of acoustic string, and of course, as you can probably guess, they add aluminum into the alloy during manufacturing. Aluminum bronze strings offer excellent bass response, as well as shimmering highs. Because of aluminum’s exceptional corrosion resistance, they also offer great longevity.
Polymer coated strings start off as regular guitar strings, but add a protective polymer coating to the exterior. Different manufacturers have their own proprietary coating blends, but they all work in similar ways.
Best Acoustic Guitar Strings For Beginners
Once a string is coated, it becomes smoother, which reduces string squeak, and noticeably improves playability. Additionally, the coating prevents oxygen reacting with the metal content of the string, which prevents them from premature dulling, helping them to last longer than any non-coated string.
Polymer coating isn’t a cure all though, these benefits do cost you a fairly significant amount of brightness, and sustain. The thicker the coating, the more profound the loss of tone.
Instead of winding the core in a metallic wrap, silk and steel strings use nylon filaments to cover the steel core. They are primarily used by folk and fingerstyle players looking for soft, mellow tones.
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The nylon wrap can prevent proper recognition by electromagnetic pickups, so they aren’t ideal for some electric-acoustic guitars, although if the guitar is equipped with a piezo pickup, there won’t be any issues.
Strings are definitely one of the guitar consumables that you will absolutely notice differences between budget and premium examples. Although, not all cheap strings are bad, and not all expensive strings are good!
One thing that low end strings will almost certainly not offer is reliability. They will likely be made of lower quality metals, meaning they’ll dull quickly, they’ll corrode, and even rust, they’ll offer minimal sustain, and they’ll break much more readily than a premium string would.
D' Addario Phosphor Bronze Ej16/ej26 Warm, Bright Balan
These acoustic guitar strings offer exceptional balance, great feel, and a beautiful bright tone that perfectly complements any acoustic guitar. They require minimal stretch, and settle at pitch quickly.
Ernie Ball is one of the go-to names in the guitar strings and accessories business, so it should come as no surprise that they innovate in those fields. One of their most successful innovations has been their aluminum bronze acoustic guitar strings.
They used aluminum in the alloy instead of phosphor or any of the other more common metals, and as promised, it results in a unique tone that blends sparkling highs with surprisingly strong bass response – Ernie Ball designed this alloy blend for exactly this purpose.
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In addition to the tonal differences, we did notice that these strings offered bell like clarity compared to bronze and phosphor bronze strings like the D’Addario EJ17, and the projection was incredible.
At the end of their 2 week shift on my guitar, they were still sounding fresh. They hadn’t lost any of their brightness, and they didn’t look much, if any different to when we first installed them. This goes some way to proving Ernie Ball’s claims of increased longevity due to the aluminum content, and the fact that they’ve managed this without coating is quite impressive.
If you’re a heavy strummer like me, you’ll appreciate the powerful bass response that comes courtesy of the hex core. The one downside we noted, however, was the lack of sustain. Notes rang clear, and separation was fantastic, but they certainly didn’t ring for long.
D'addario Ej35 Silk And Steel 12 String Acoustic Guitar Strings Light 11 47
Stretch was minimal, which led to excellent tuning stability. There were a couple of tuning touch ups on the first day, but the strings settled quickly and held pitch for the remainder of the test.
Verdict: We really enjoyed playing these strings. The Ernie Ball Aluminum Bronze strings sounded good on soft arpeggiated playing, as well as loud, hard strumming. Across the two weeks test they held up really well, losing no brightness, and they suffered no breakages.
As one of the world’s longest standing manufacturers of instrument strings, D’Addario is a brand that has come to stand for quality and reliability. This is absolutely apparent in their basic EJ17 phosphor bronze strings.
D'addario Ej40 Silk & Steel Warm Mellow Tone Acoustic Guitar Strings
These strings were unpretentious, and because they are made with tried and tested materials and construction methods, they are well made, and consistent between packets.
I found that these strings were perhaps a little uninspired across the highs and lows, but the mids were clear and bright. If you’re a fingerstyle player, these strings should work out well, but heavy strummers may want to consider something like an aluminum bronze or an 80/20 bronze.
As far as longevity goes, they survived the two week test without breakages, although they were audibly duller by the end of the test – we suspect another 4 weeks with around 2 hours a day of play would render these strings dead.
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The finish was noticeably rougher than other strings on test, which may explain the quick dulling, as the deep grooves are magnets for the dirt and grime that kill brightness in acoustic guitar strings.
Tuning stability was fairly average. They took a few days to settle, and stayed at pitch for around 4 to 6 hours on average before tuning was needed.
Verdict: These D’Addario phosphor bronze strings are bright and resonant, and certainly offer great value when you compare the sound with the low price. They will work well for most styles of music thanks to their presence in the middle frequencies.
D'addario Acoustic Strings
If big volume, punchy mids, and perfectly clear highs are what you're looking for, these 80/20 bronze strings from Stringjoy will fit the bill. They're made by hand in the USA, and the attention to detail shows.
As we alluded to in the top 3 roundup above, Stringjoy is a relatively new brand, having only been established in 2014. In just a few short years, they have begun to take market share away from the big names, and with strings like these 80/20 bronze Brights, it’s easy to see why.
80/20 is a common alloy in use with acoustic guitar strings, but make no mistake about it, you aren’t getting common tones here. We found them to have above average punch in the mids and some of the most crystalline highs you’ll find in any string.
The Best Acoustic Guitar Strings For A Warm Sound
Volume was superb with this medium gauge set, they projected very well. They were unusually dynamic, and were able to remain just as nuanced with gentle fingerpicking as they were with hard strumming.
When we wanted warmth and soft tones, the strings delivered, and when we sharpened up the attack looking for clearly defined string separation, we got that, too.
The ends of the wound strings are actually unwound, which really helps in
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