No sustain and grossly overpriced!
Review by Alexander M. on 10 Jan 2019 review stating No sustain and grossly overpriced! Right out of the box these trebles appeared to be made out of a dense and inflexible material, somewhat resembling black nylon, except that these strings are even denser and brighter sounding. There is a huge timbral difference between the first, second, and third strings. The first string sounds very bright with some metallic twang while the third is somewhat dull in comparison to others. To compensate for this, Dogal included a spare clear nylon first string which frays due to low quality, but evens out the timbral balance within the trebles at the cost of the initial brilliance. I can see why some flamenco players or wannabe classical guitarists may praise these strings as they are bright and punchy. Nevertheless, I find them absolutely unsuitable for classical guitar due to the lack of necessary sustain and responsiveness to vibrato. This is by far the shortest sustain I've ever encountered within the trebles and, on top of that, they don't always tune well in high positions. It is possible that they are more durable than traditional nylon strings and less prone to scratching thanks to this denser material, but I won’t be able to tell that for sure since I’m not planning to keep them on my guitar for long anyways. Even though they have an interesting sound, I’m not willing to tolerate the lack of sustain! As far as the basses are concerned, they actually sounded nice and well balanced. Unlike the trebles, they don’t have such an issue with sustain and sounded brilliant while fresh, so this is the only reason I gave this set 2 starts instead of 1. However, the winding is still an uncoated silver plated copper wire which deteriorates just as quickly as any other silver plated copper string on the market. Therefore, don’t expect any miracle in terms of longevity to help to justify the aggressive asking price of this set. As usual, on the second day of my intensive practice routine these basses already didn’t sound as fresh as on the first day and looked fairly tarnished. So, if you are a professional guitarist like myself who practices advanced repertoire for several hours on a daily basis and whose hands tend to sweat, be prepared to change these basses as frequently as you would any other silver plated copper strings. All in all, there are a way too many red flags for me to recommend this set to a professional classical guitarist, especially at this ridiculous price point. Had it costed ten bucks or less, I might have given it 4 stars and just say that these strings might be more suitable for flamenco players. However, I can’t simply do this here because such an aggressive price tag forces me to write this negative review and to slam this brand. One, of course, would argue that it’s priced so high because of the material, manufacturing costs, and blah, blah, blah… However, why would all that matter if, at the end, these strings fail to deliver an adequate sustain, longevity, and the overall experience on the money I’ve paid for them out of my pocket? Thus, in conclusion, I can only say that this Dogal Maestrale set gives me an overall impression of an experimental, under-tested, and underdeveloped prototype rather than of a finished, complete, and refined product ready to enter competitive market. There are definitely many other better sounding options available at a half of the cost of this set.
On Dogal Maestrale Classical Guitar Strings Reg Tension NR168B, Full Set
