Harley Benton HQS EL 10-46 Coated

I have two similar guitars (HB Fusion-T) with the same model pickups (Roswell LAFs). I already had Elixir Nanowebs on one and I put these on the other. In terms of tone there is no obvious difference. As for feel the wound strings on the Elixirs feel better than on these but the plain strings feel much the same.

Comparing them with the older HB coated strings they are a huge improvement in feel and, I think, a bit brighter in tone. I don't yet know how well they will last compared with the Elixirs.

They don't sound dull to me, but the Elixir Optiwebs are a bit brighter and uncoated strings a bit brighter still. Given that they are about a third of the price of the Elixirs and no more than most uncoated strings, if they last well I'll be using them a lot, except for certain recording tasks.

Recommended for value for money

I bought 5 packs of these to try out since they were so cheap. But every time I strung up my guitar and got to tuning, the A string broke during the stretching phase of tuning, and it started to unwind itself at the machine head. This same break happened 3 times in a row.

I inspected my machine head to see if there was anything out of the ordinary but I couldn't find anything wrong. I then took an A string from a spare set of Ernie Ball Slinkys and tried it, and it survived. No break, no problem. With that conclusion, I suspect the Harley Benton strings are to blame.

The coating on the Harley Bentons also left a lot to be desired. The coating itself was so thing that it was barely noticeable.

Maybe I just had bad luck and got a few bad apples, but since the breaks were consistent throughout multiple pairs of strings, and the fact that they broke before I even got done tuning them, I won't recommend anyone to buy them.

I bought these just to try them.

Having used DAddario XT and Elixir Optiwebs I now have something to compare these with. I own 11 guitars so I go through lots of strings. The sound is quite bright but extremely uneven across the strings. The D string is very dull and the sound in general is a bit dull (poor mids). After only 4 days they started changing color from silver to a reddish/pinky shade. Overall the sound just isn't there so that's a deal breaker for me. Just for information, the sound on Elixirs is dull too but the playability and feel is great.

So far DAddarios XT are by far the best sounding coated strings and durability is great too, they're on my guitar for almost a year now and still look and sound as good as new