EXL170-5 : My First Choice...

I have been using D'Addario strings now for over 20 years, both on guitar and bass. I have tried various other makes over the years for my 4 and 5 string basses such as Warwick, Rotosound, Elite, and Fender but I always came back to D'Addario. Why? In a word, Quality. I love the colour coded ball ends of the strings as well, it just makes things that little bit simpler when changing strings.

I've only ever had one issue in all the time I've been using them and that was a tiny winding fault in the middle of a string. I photographed it and sent an email to D'Addario who replied within a day and sent out a new string along with an explanation and an apology within 2 days! Very impressive.

As for the sound, they are very bright and growly, plenty of mids (I use them with Jazz style basses) and the harmonics are rich and full when used with the bridge pick-up. They keep their "fresh on" brightness for about 5 or 6 gigs (my hands aren't that sweaty, luckily) but I don't really notice that they are dull for a lot more. I've also never had one snap on me yet.... (I've Jinxed that one now!).

For this price you can not go wrong. They also stay very fresh in their protective packaging as well which means I can bulk buy a few sets at a time and not have to worry about them degrading over time. I recently used a set that was 3 years old and they were still as new within their plastic bag. Highly recommended.