Daddario EPN120

I know what I want from my strings in terms of tone and feel: smooth top end but defined, and not too rough on my pick and fingers. New nickel plated steels are no deal for me because I find their tone too harsh and strident. I had found other brands of pure nickel either physically too stiff or low strings sounding either too weak or flabby. These are perfect, balanced in tone and feel, clear and snappy.

I am currently using these strings in an original JM guitar with coil splitting humbuckers, alder body, maple neck, pau ferro fretboard.

Cons: quite expensive for the market. One has to estimate how many to stock from an online order because they are not widely available. This may be due to their price and limited target: pure nickel is not that popular, no high tech features that attract some. The custom gauge of this set, although judiciously chosen for a great performance, may scare some players away and may possibly make this product not pop up in online results using standard gauge filters.

Update: I changed my rating to maximum because these are simply the best strings I ever used. I recently compared them to some others, on the same guitar and, apart for the qualities mentioned above, I confirmed they simply stay in tune, and do this for days!