D'addario strings - packaging nuisance

Sassafras

Over the years I've tried all kinds of strings but I've always come back to D'Addarios apart from about 20 years ago when I got into Peavey stainless steel (I think) strings.They stopped making those so it was back to the D'Addarios,been on them ever since.Don't really care about how they pack them as long they're still the same great quality.

Voxman

I just got this e-mail from George Santos at D'Addario.... completely unexpected and unnecessary but what a very nice man and such a lovely gesture, I thought I had to share!

Dear George,

Many thanks for the very detailed explanation which I thought was well worth posting on The Fretboard forum.

http://thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/29917/d-addario-strings-packaging-nuisance#latest

As you'll see, although I'm not the only one who finds this 2-coil approach inconvenient, most folk are prepared to put up with it in view of D'Addario's being their favourite string and competitively priced. I fall into that category myself in that I've been very happy with the quality, tone & longevity of D'Addario strings, so you won't be losing me as a customer. What I've done to avoid problems in the rare circumstance that I get another string break at a gig is to buy a couple of packs from a different manufacturer to take to gigs that are sealed for airtightness but individually packaged so that I can quickly identify and access an individual string if I need to. I’ll then keep my D'Addarios for full string changes at home when the 2-coil packaging doesn't matter.

Thanks again for the detailed response, and have a great Xmas and New Year.

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Can I send you 2 sets of the exl120 (or the balanced exl120bt) sets for the inconvenience?

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Needless to say, I sent him a big thank you and note of appreciation!  

Guitar_Slinger

MatthewShreddery said:

Not as annoying as having to throw away hundreds of Players' Points I had saved up over 12 years, after realising they were no longer giving the free gifts...

I stopped buying D'Addario they stopped Players' Points. Wasn't the only reason... The environment-friendly thing gave me the idea to save travel miles, so I've switched to British strings (Rotosound) for the time being.

thomasross20

I thought planet waves cables were well regarded?

ICBM

thomasross20 said:

I thought planet waves cables were well regarded?

They are the most unreliable cables I know of - the shop I work for took a batch a few years back and almost all failed, most very quickly and were brought back under warranty. Some of the replacements broke too. It wasn't customer abuse, since one particular customer just asked for *any* other cable as a replacement after the third breakage, we gave him a couple of Stagg cheapos, and… a couple of years later those are still fine.

Also some of the models have a tendency to damage jacks. They have 'patent' spring-loaded designs which are supposed to maintain a better contact but actually just strain the jack contacts, in some cases meaning that you have to replace them - not always an easy job on many amps.

I've come across some that suck tone badly too - without another one to directly compare it to I'm not sure whether that's a feature of a particular type (there are several) or a partly faulty cable.

Complete crap, basically. A triumph of marketing over product quality.

ThePrettyDamned

ICBM;455834" said:

thomasross20 said:

I thought planet waves cables were well regarded?





They are the most unreliable cables I know of - the shop I work for took a batch a few years back and almost all failed, most very quickly and were brought back under warranty. Some of the replacements broke too. It wasn't customer abuse, since one particular customer just asked for *any* other cable as a replacement after the third breakage, we gave him a couple of Stagg cheapos, and… a couple of years later those are still fine.

Also some of the models have a tendency to damage jacks. They have 'patent' spring-loaded designs which are supposed to maintain a better contact but actually just strain the jack contacts, in some cases meaning that you have to replace them - not always an easy job on many amps.

I've come across some that suck tone badly too - without another one to directly compare it to I'm not sure whether that's a feature of a particular type (there are several) or a partly faulty cable.

Complete crap, basically. A triumph of marketing over product quality.

The jacks are too big I think, I had to replace the socket on my old bc rich gunslinger after using a pw cable.

Pos.

thomasross20

Oh! I've had a 5m planet waves cable for years which has done ok but did recently go a bit dodgy..

I'm going to see about Kabl cables, especially one with a very small jack that can for right at the edge of my pedal board. In the meantime I got a few fender tweed angled cables which I think are good.