Cobalt Strings

[willow13]

Dredge......

well I got some of these about a month ago and have to say with out a word of a lie I HATE THEM .......

I have been using stainless steel strings for almost a year now (might even be over a yr) and love everything about them. I do have a couple of guitars that I will never put SS on because they will just be far to bright but in general they work well. So I got some cobalt mainly because they had no SS and I thought why not. As soon as I put them on I could tell they were "twangier" than the stainless (which surprised me a lot because while SS are bright to me they don't get twangy) but felt pretty much the same.
Sadly after a couple of days playing they started to get sticky and almost rusty. I'm someone who doesn't clean their strings after playing (I do run fast frets over them every now and then) I figure its my filth so it must add to "my sound" ...so i gave them the FF wipe and they felt better but still a bit sticky so the guitar sat unplayed for 2 weeks, picked it up today and blah the strings feel really rough and gritty.....so its bye bye Cobalt and hello SS again

There is a bright side though......now I don't have to spend $24 for a set of strings

[crowbgood1]

I,m changing back to standard strings next week so will be interesting to see the differences.

[sizzlingbadger]

Dredge again...

I had Cobolt strings on my Gold Top at the gear fest yesterday, I didn't tell anyone cos I didn't think anyone would care to be honest. They have been on the guitar foe about 3 weeks and I've just gone back to my usual D'addario XL's. I often find that when trying something new you don't always pick up on all the differences until you revert back to what you had before.

I don't hate the strings but I don't like them on this guitar. They sound louder and harsher to me and there is too much bass on the low E string. I find the mids seem a bit scooped out too. They also have a rough sort of feel like they are slightly abrasive. Putting the D'addario's back on showed all this up quite clearly

[Scooter13]

Dredge again...

I had Cobolt strings on my Gold Top at the gear fest yesterday, I didn't tell anyone cos I didn't think anyone would care to be honest. They have been on the guitar foe about 3 weeks and I've just gone back to my usual D'addario XL's. I often find that when trying something new you don't always pick up on all the differences until you revert back to what you had before.

I don't hate the strings but I don't like them on this guitar. They sound louder and harsher to me and there is too much bass on the low E string. I find the mids seem a bit scooped out too. They also have a rough sort of feel like they are slightly abrasive. Putting the D'addario's back on showed all this up quite clearly

Were they 46-10s? Do you think they are stiffer than regular strings too, because I noticed the feel of them as different to any of the other guitars I played yesterday, but then all the other guitars may have been strung with 9s?

[sizzlingbadger]

Yeah they were 46-10's and your right the D'addario's do feel a bit a lighter which is odd as the Cobalts are supposed to have slightly less tension

[willow13]

Yeah they were 46-10's and your right the D'addario's do feel a bit a lighter which is odd as the Cobalts are supposed to have slightly less tension

I didn't notice any difference going to cobalt...but then I have used stainless steels for a while so they have a similar feel. When I switch between guitars with nickel and ones with SS I don't notice the difference anymore either, but when I first went to SS the difference was huge. The SS felt lighter and faster