Martin Kovar strings?

[RJVB]

Anyone try these new Kovar-wrapper strings from Martin yet?

Interesting alloy which tube-amp owners may be familiar with without knowing it, and that with 29% Ni and almost 53.5% Fe will work nicely with electromagnetic PUs.

They're round-wounds of course, but listening to this comparison they do seem to make a "fake-wood" dread sound a little bit like an acoustic archtop to my ears (FF to about 7:00; can't seem to get the embedded player to start there automatically):

[sgosnell]

First I've heard of it being used for guitar strings. I suppose the low thermal expansion might mitigate tuning changes with temperature changes, but if the b and e strings are plain steel they would go out more than the Kovar wound strings. I've already noticed that with other winding alloys. The linked Wikipedia page does say that the cobalt lowers the iron oxide, commonly known as rust, and that would be a good thing. So many strings, so little time...

[RJVB]

[rant]
What annoys me more than just a bit is that Martin apparently makes these under license from Ernie Ball. They, pardon the pun, had the balls to file for a patent on musical instrument strings having a cobalt alloy wrap wire.
Get a patent on a specific composition if it cost you to find it, fine, but such a broad patent kills innovation by others and should never have been awarded.
[/rant]

How about we get together and file a patent for a "musican instrument string having a metal alloy wrap wire coated with human fingertip oil"? We might get rich