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tools I have are cheap and space limited so its a pain doing it. I managed to put them on and tune them ok after my usual struggle. I always leave them a bit long and snip the ends when done. So I am snipping away and 'ping' goes the b string as instead of the leftover being snipped I snipped the actual bloody string! In my defence both the string and the tuning peg where you insert the string through the hole are silver in my case. Serves me right for being a pillock and more short sighted than I thought.
Unless you mean the guitar, of course.
I can't see a consensus listing being practical. There are just so many variables; we all play different guitars with different techniques and different styles of music. A string I love, you might hate. Come to that, strings I love on one guitar can sound awful on another one.
However I see no reason why other members shouldn't post their own string journals. I'd never thought of keeping notes about strings until a member on another forum suggested it, but I found it very valuable having made-at-the-time notes to look back on and .... well, one thing led to another and now I've almost run out of untried brands to play with.
In no particular order, I got around to trying Galli Fingerstyle this week. These are a double-wound set. The idea with double-wound strings is that two layers of finer windings produces a smoother, tighter surface with less unwanted left-hand noise than a single coarse winding and (because there is less space between the windings to collect muck) a longer life. The downside (or upside - depends on your point of view!) is a cleaner, more sterile sound. The Galli Fingerstyle set surprised me a little by turning out to be bluegrass gauge (12-56 instead of the usual 12-53ish) and a lot by turning out to be nickel-bronze, not the phosphor bronze I was expecting. They do have some of that flat metallic ring nickel strings are noted for, but much less than I expected. Overall they are clear with a very precise sound.
The La Bella Gypsy Jazz strings I loved last time have an apparently identical alter-ego: La Bella Silk and Steels are made from the same materials, look identical, and come in the same very sensible 12-56 gauge. (:Sensible" in this case because silk strings tend to be very low tension and making a set a little heavier on the bottom end balances them up again. Top marks for La Bella in this regard.) Are they the same as the Gypsy Jazz? In one word, no. At first I thought they were much inferior (at least for my purposes) - over-mellow and rather gutless. But as they settled in (or perhaps as I became more used to them) my view moderated. They have been on for a couple of months now (admittedly with little playing time as I have been over the water on the Big Island) and are sounding very nice: full, mellow, and enough grunt to be enjoyable. (But note this is on a very lightly built and responsive instrument - not sure they'd be much fun on a typical factory guitar.) So good strings - but not a patch on those superb Gypsy Jazz La Bellas. I have ordered two sets more of the latter.
Now for the really weird ones: Ernie Ball Aluminum Bronze. These look weird, feel weird, and sound weird, but in their own weird way they are a good weird product. Most people won't like them but they have quite specific characteristics and if that matches what you are looking for, there isn't anything else remotely similar.
Speaking of weird, DR Hi-Def Neons (above) are about as weird-looking as you can get.They feel weird too, as or more distinctive than Elixirs. But a good sound (albeit somewhat muted because of the coating - not an issue on this sometimes over-bright rosewood guitar) and once you get use to the soapiness, a great soft, flexible feel. Oh, and barely any left-hand squeal. Very reasonable at £7.95 and if you can live with the colours, well worth a try.
Finally, a hex core set from Dogal. I have a love-hate relationship with the Dogal round cores: they sound and feel absolutely wonderful but they are horribly prone to coming unravelled and going dead. Yes, round core strings can do that if you are not careful, but I am careful and I've still had two failures out of three sets. Nevertheless, I'm going to try them once again, this time with super-duper-extra precautions (I may even simply not cut the strings at all, just make little ringlets on the headstock). In the meantime, this is Dogal's hex core set (which surely should be safe enough). I fitted them to the Brook a couple of days ago and they are settling in very nicely indeed: fairly high tension but softening nicely with use and a lovely clear, ringing tone.
Working on the theory that manufacturers who make a phosphor bronze string broadly similar to the Martin phosphor bronze (which is very like the Martin brass apart from the alloy) would also stick to the same style in brass, you could try SIT, GHS, Optima, and Pyramid. Also perhaps Curt Mangan, Mark Bass, and maybe Ernie Ball (though I haven't tried a set of Balls in ages and my memory is a bit faded).