Santa CruzParabolic Tension Acoustic Guitar Strings Low Tension

So....I've been an Acoustic Guitar String explorer for years. You know what I'm talking about! Trying this string and that string in search of an acoustic steel string I can truly love. Never really finding that string. Ahhh...I'll get stuck on a brand for awhile...maybe even YEARS...but eventually I move on. So...serendipity presents itself in the spring of 2021. After years of playing around searching for my perfect steel strings. I have a Martin Jumbo M65 maple, a 1930's Tonk Bros. small body and a 1920's Supertone parlor. The Tonk has phenominal tone but had many problems....cracks in the body...frets worn down...etc.etc. so I sent it out to Portland Oregon to the highly respected luthier, Kerry Char. Char Lutheries & Guitar Repair. He re-fretted the Tonk, repaired cracks that "So-Called". well-known Milwaukee luthiers told me "Couldn't be repaired". and at my request, installed a truss rod for me. So...Kerry is a really nice guy and loves to talk guitar or anything guitar related and we get on the subject of acoustic steel guitar strings. I told him about my "Newest Find" which I raved about...and he listened...then he asked me...."Have you ever tried Santa Cruz guitar strings?" And I said...."Uhhhh...no..." and he highly recommended them.....then.....I read that Tony Polecastro (Acoustic Guitar Challenge). ALSO highly recommends Santa Cruz strings....so I said to myself, "OKAY...I'll bite..." and I ordered three sets of Santa Cruz strings one for each acoustic. My jumbo Maple Martin and my two vintage small bodied parlors. OMG! Are you kidding me? I cannot conceive of me buying anything BUT Santa Cruz in the future....these strings are TRULY amazing tonally and also for volume. Not only that...but if you are used to GAUGE sizes for light medium or heavy strings....FUGGEDABOUDIT! Santa Cruz doesn't go by string gauges...they go by string TENSION which the more I thought about it....the more sense it made to me. So you won't find any string gauges on the Santa Cruz packaging if that's what you NEED to be comfortable then these strings aren't for you....BUT...I strongly encourage you to give them a shot....WTH! It's only a few bucks! I think they will change your life and renew your playing. Your guitars will sound like something ELSE! Something different! I love 'em!

I tune to 432 Hz, and all but one of my guitars are entry-level (the other is a *ahem* ol piece of junk Martin.)These are my new go-to after about 15-20 years of Dean Markley blue steels. The low tension combined with bone hardware makes even cheap Fenders sound like much more expensive instruments. They may go flat quickly, I dont know about that, but even if they only last six weeks as another reviewer says, thats not so bad- they are consumables, after all.Ive found that most problems come from setup and hardware- if youre not going to do a full workup, these probably wont help- the low tension buzzes a lot, you have to adjust the truss rod to get rid of it. Setting the intonation at the saddle makes a big difference as well.So, if youre going to do a full setup, these are great- but what they wont do is swap out directly from Ernie Ball or whatever most people use. I got a $200 Fender parlor guitar that sounds dead-on like a $600 Martin that says Im right on this one! ;)

I came across these while searching for new strings. To my shame I had never heard of Santa Cruz before, but I've since discovered a friend of mine has one of their guitars. I read a bunch of reviews and it seemed like these strings were designed to be something special, so I took the plunge. OK, they're a little more ex-y than regular guitar strings but they do promise to be hi-tech and super-good.I was looking forward to trying something different but I wasn't prepared for how good they sound and how easily they play. I'm playing my trusty old 1994 Ovation (Custom Balladeer model 1860) and the difference was apparent immediately. The sound is fuller and ringing, and altogether warming. I'm using the light version and I can honestly say I've never felt my guitar play better or smoother, and the sound is amazing. My wife even turned around to ask me what I'd done to my guitar, it sounded immediately bigger and better, and it filled the room.I could go on, but I'd be boring myself. These guitar strings are fantastic. I don't know how long they'll last but I'm sure they won't run out on me any time soon. And for $18 how can you go wrong?I can highly recommend these strings, they are amazing!

I finallly got around to trying these strings out. I decided to try them on one of my custom handmade acoustics. My initial impressions are that the guitar seems slightly louder than before (This is by far one of the loudest guitars I've ever played to begin with, so it's not something I necessarily needed from this guitar). It did seem like there was slightly less oomph in the bass. Overall, the strings sounded good, about what I would expect from a good set of Phospor Bronze strings.The B-string sounded partially dead. It just didn't have the zing that the other strings had, so this was a bit annoying as it was pretty noticeable. Maybe, it was just a bad string. I've had it happen before on a new set of strings, but it is rare. Also, the low E string had slightly less volume. This guitar was built to be perfectly balanced across the board with a regular set of strings, and with a regular set of strings, it is perfectly even from top to bottom. Supposedly, one of the marketing features of these strings is to make your guitar even across all registers. It may be that it does that for guitars that are maybe a little bass heavy and/or have a low E string that is a bit loud in comparison to the others. Perhaps I should have picked a different guitar to try them on as this one didn't need that. These are worth giving a try if you feel your guitar has an issue with unbalanced EQ. As to longevity, I can't really comment because I haven't had them on the guitar that long. I gave these 4 stars as a comparison to other strings without factoring in the price. If I factored in the price, I'd maybe give them a 3.5 (These are a bit on the expensive side). I hope this review is helpful.