Thomastik Prices

**Doctor Jeff** · 08-20-2025, 10:48 AM

BTW, as far as strings, I have a set of TI JS 12s on my 175 and 135. I had a mishap stringing the 135 and broke 2 strings (!). Never had that happen before.

I keep them on a couple of years, and like others I am happy with the mellow sound, which is of course what I'm going for. I have a few other archtops and a Tele set up with D'A Pure Nickels.

I will point out that what sounds good to your ears sitting a few feet away from the amp may not sound good to people in an audience. I played a gig last year, and had trouble dialing in my usual tone. I was annoyed at how bright the tone was to my ears, but on the pro recording from the audience perspective it sounded fine.

BTW, TI JS 12 strings are $26.47 at Sweetwater right now. Thanks for the thread. I just ordered a 3-pack.

**nevershouldhavesoldit** · 08-20-2025, 11:02 AM

Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit

An extra dB can make listeners believe that truly identical program material sounds "better" from one guitar, component etc than from another. But the goals were to identify any differences at all between year old and brand new but otherwise identical strings on the same guitar. A dB is simply not enough to confound this comparison. The ratio of guesses that the old ones were the new ones to those correctly identifying each set was 50:50, which is the same as random chance. Ideally, no one should have failed to identify the new ones if the difference was anywhere close to enough to justify changing strings. Even 80% would have been fairly convincing. But 50:50 is no more accurate than flipping a coin to decide.

I described matching mean levels as well as peak. The dynamic range of my playing on the two matched clips was as close as the peak levels (less than 2 dB). And as I recall, the spectrum plots for both showed almost no differences. I'm still up in northern Michigan and will dig out the files when I get home next week.

We're back from the wilds of Michigan (Leelenau / Charlevoix / Grand Traverse region). It's beautiful country and a great place for a vacation - friendly people, great local shops, a few truly excellent restaurants (Stella in Traverse City was really wonderful), fantastic seafood, and good local beers. Michigan wine country is really cool, and they make a lot of decent wine there (some much better than decent). I was sorely disappointed with their coffee culture, though. They have fancy machines all over the place, but the espresso was uniformly the worst I've ever had. Even the "gourmet" coffee roasters' shops made thin, bitter espresso that wasn't tasteless but made me wish it had been. Surprisingly, the airport snack bar had really good regular coffee, though.

Unfortunately, when I did that old vs new TI test on the AF207, I was still using the Soundcloud free tier, which had limited capacity. I stupidly deleted those files so I could add more. I thought I still had them on my hard drive, but I apparently do not. I'll check through my cloud backup later today.

**Cunamara** · 08-20-2025, 12:34 PM

Originally Posted by Doctor Jeff

I will point out that what sounds good to your ears sitting a few feet away from the amp may not sound good to people in an audience. I played a gig last year, and had trouble dialing in my usual tone. I was annoyed at how bright the tone was to my ears, but on the pro recording from the audience perspective it sounded fine.

Yeah, this is true. If your tone sounds great to you 3 feet away from your amp on stage, it's probably muddy and indistinct for the audience. High frequencies don't travel as well and are absorbed or obscured by other things (soft objects in the room like the bodies of the audience and their clothing, competing frequencies like the drummer, etc.). On stage we do not hear things the same way the audience does.

None of that has to do with TI string prices, though.

**lammie200** · 08-20-2025, 12:45 PM

Since this is about strings I thought that I would post it here and see what people say.

It is about a wound versus plain G string issue. I have noticed that wound Gs don't sustain as long as plain Gs. At least they don't retain the original attack. There is attack and then fall off. With plain Gs I get attack and then linear fade. Do others find that to be true as well? I actually prefer the feel of wound Gs, but I would like the sustain to be more uniform along all the strings. I have done lots of tweaking with pick up heights and pole piece heights and can get minor changes on wound Gs. But the main characteristic of attack and fall off is always present. Anyone?

And, btw, Pyramid Golds haven't fluctuated in price the same way as TIs, fwiw.

**2bornot2bop** · 08-20-2025, 04:10 PM

Benson .114’s are still $40 on Amazon. Bebop .113’s are $27. No price change for any of these.

**ombudsman** · 08-22-2025, 11:07 AM

Originally Posted by lammie200

Since this is about strings I thought that I would post it here and see what people say.

It is about a wound versus plain G string issue. I have noticed that wound Gs don't sustain as long as plain Gs. At least they don't retain the original attack. There is attack and then fall off. With plain Gs I get attack and then linear fade. Do others find that to be true as well?

yes that is a trueism. I think round core wound strings sustain a touch more (not so much as to negate the difference with the plain steel).

**nevershouldhavesoldit** · 08-22-2025, 11:41 AM

Originally Posted by 2bornot2bop

Benson .114’s are still $40 on Amazon. Bebop .113’s are $27. No price change for any of these.

Prices are all over the place. Amazon has a 53 Benson single for $31, and higher wound strings are anywhere from $17 to $24. Today, most GB112s are about $5 more than most GB114s where the 114s are still under $50. But where the GBs are $55, so are the GB112s, e.g. MF. Several of the usual sources also have "low stock" warnings on them all.