Harley Benton HQS EL 10-46 Coated

Lets go right to it. I've been using other coated strings for years now. On Elixirs you can spot a coating with a naked eye. Here you cannot spot anything. If you bend the string, like at the saddles or on tuning peg, the core gets exposed between windings, like on a regular strings. The feel of the string is just like any other regular strings. Some might like it. That means no coating flaking off like it happens on Elixirs.

With other cheap HB electric strings I had some sound issues. Wounded strings didn't give the same sound level on recordings, and after a while these were dead as the winding got loose. Here with HQS everything sounds ok. From the start my recordings sounds fine, signal level is even across the strings, and after two weeks of playing I'm still satisfied with the tone. I haven't use any string conditioner.

What is responsible for string durability is not the coating only. Often on cheap string the winding gets loose and no cleaning, boiling or conditioning will help the strings after such thing. Here as i mentioned before, the winding seems to be of decent quality.

Also no rusting spotted till this review.

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 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