D'Addario Flatwound Electric Guitar ECG23 Chromes Extra Light 10-48

I’ve messed around with a few brands but I keep coming back to these. They feel good to me; they’re reasonably priced and they’re readily available. I see no reason to change.

I'm fortunate enough to own a 1994 Epiphone Emperor (solid spruce top) made in the Peerless factory. I went from nickel wound in 12 to 54 to the chrome flat wound in 10 to 48. I got better tone and the guitar was far more comfortable. Money well spent.

These flatwound strings are the exact same tension as a set of 10-46 standard wound strings. They sound fabulous in my hollow and semi-hollow bodied Gibsons and Epiphones. Technically they are superior because the G string, although it looks plain, also has a fine, flat winding. They are some of the few strings that are actually mellow AND bright.

I use these on a 1980 ES175 that has a Bigsby Vibrato on it with a roller bridge - no squeak, great tone, stays in tune, long lasting, nice a slippery. I would give 5 stars but I end up adding a 13 and 15 to get a fuller sound on the E and B strings.

I played these strings for about 300 hours. They cost $19.00. If you divide the amount of total hours spend playing by the cost (300 divided by 19) then you get the cost-performance ratio.

In this case the CPR is 15.7, which means for every dollar you spend, you get 15.7 hours of playing.

Most strings CPR is around 7-8.

Thus, these strings have about TWICE as much lifespan as most strings.

With that being said, they aren’t my favorite strings as far as sound goes. They’re okay. Not bad. They have a balanced sound. Like imagine all parameters of sound; these are average on all levels. They’re a well-rounded middle ground type string, which makes them versatile. They have sort of a growling sound as well (hard to explain), which I thought was cool.

Practically zero string noise because of the flat winding, which makes it difficult for metal or any sort of heavy riffing because the string is so smooth, your pick has nothing to grip against. It’s like trying to play a slippery noodle. This is most noticeable on the low E & A string.

FINAL THOUGHTS: ridiculously high CPR. Not my favorite strings, but they’re cool. I appreciate them for what they are.