I work for a Yamaha music school and these are unfortunately the strings stocked at the school, I have been getting them at cost price and thought I would order a box of the mediums since the lighter guages seemed to work quite well on the Yamaha pacifica 112s that the students use - wrong. I'm a longterm user of GHS strings (Boomers Medium and Low sets, Low Tuners for Blues gigs) and using Dean Markleys again on my Strats only reminded me why I have stuck with GHS for 10 years, the guages of these strings are poorly matched for one thing (.11 on E and .13 on B, the B should be at least .14 prefereably .15 to match the E and .18 plain G. I break these strings a lot, even during rehearsal the other night when they had been on the guitar for about 2 hours!!! and the wound strings age extremely quickly losing there bounce and the very average tone within 3 - 4 hours of playing, obviously if you play an awful lot like me, this is nowhere near good enough and even if I have been getting a good price it's actually a false economy, considering how fast they get used up. I've two sets left, should be good for about 6 hours of playing :( after that i'll be ordering GHS from Stringsdirect again. Absolute rubbish strings, would never buy them again, the worst i've tried. On a point of fairness, the lighter guage sets seem to be somewhat better, but i'd never use anything lighter than .11 anyway so it's little use to me.

I have been using the JAZZ set for playing Tharsh metal. Dropping to C or B with these strings is awesome! The sustain is mental! <br/> <br/>I can thrash out rythms with total control and play blistering leads and the strings pay up everytime! <br/> <br/>I love my Deans! Totally reccomend these for low tunnings.

Been using these for some time (13 - 56), downtuned to C for playing death metal and thrash on. Love the sound and they last for ages without loosing any of they good looks and qualities. <br/> <br/>By far the best strings iv ever used and i can't see me ever changing.

these strings r great! im currently using the 12s on my telecaster at standard tuning, i wz surprised how easy they r to play however (I was originally usin 10s bt got up 2 the 12s via 11s which has probably eased the transition) and the difference in sound. The heavier strings produce a very nice warm, rich tone, which is actually quite hard to describe! but is nice non the less! The only thing wrong with these strings is the lack of a plain 3rd string in the 12 n 13 sets, im currently using a plain 0.19 (with the 12s 0.20 4 the 13s) single which i bought seperate from the set. This is because im a lead player and a wound 3rd is pretty much impossible 2 bend and is ther4 useless 2 me. <br/>im gonna return 2 the point tht these strings rnt as hard 2 play with as u mite think. Theyr only hard 2 play straight afta they hv been put on the guitar, i found tht afta 2 or 3 days the strings were alot easier 2 play (im nt sure if this is because the strings hv stretched, my fingers jst gt alot stronger or my guitar hs shrunk due 2 the tention bt i think its the first reason!!). iv only had these down tuned 1ce 4 1/2 a tone and the difference in tension wz unbelievable, they playd like a set of 10s only a bit chunkier if u no wt i meen! thts all iv reely gt 2 say, and jst as david m sed evry utha strings u play after these will feel like elastic bands!! J.

I use these tuned down to D. They were a bit tough on my fretting hand to begin with, but the better tone and additional sustain is worth it. Additionally, because of the heavier gauge, it's possible to exert much more control over fast rhythm playing.

There are good and bad things about these strings, as you might expect of any string. But I think the problem I have must be more than merely subjective. <br/>As a guy, I am rarely found criticizing G-strings, but here I'm afraid I must make exception. <br/>I use these 13s, and as you'll see that includes a 26 wound 3rd string. Now, there are two problems with this, for me. Firstly, it is a nasty bugger to bend with. Even two semitone bends at the fifth fret are strenuous. This wouldn't be a problem as such (it would just mean that these strings were too heavy for me) but none of the other strings are nearly as stiff. Hammer-ons and pull-offs need an enormous amount more strength to even approach the volume of the same on the other strings. So I thought momentarily that maybe the wound 26 is too heavy for the rest of the set. But that leads me to the other problem. It's also the quietest of the set. If you play the 4th, 3rd, and 2nd strings, you can hear clearly that the 3rd is dead by comparison. You might say that therefore it just needs to be picked harder, but I don't think that's the problem. It's just too quiet. This is on an electric guitar, by the way. <br/>It's a pain, the idea that you might have to pick the 3rd string harder than all the rest, and it obviously isn't ideal for chords. All this has helped me consider that maybe I got a dud in the pack, but that doesn't say much for Dean Markley reliability, considering that otherwise the construction of the ball ends and that seems to be massively better than Ernie Ball or D'Addario strings. <br/>So anyway, I'd say these strings are great, except for the G-string, which is a pain in the arse. Err....fingers. <br/>And tuning down when you're trying to play a well-known piece is a pain in the ears after a minute or two. <br/>One last thing I'll say about strings this heavy in general - it makes lighter strings seem REALLY light. Going back to my nylon-string acoustic after playing these for a day was like playing with rubber bands. Seriously.