I had a unique experience with the new D’Addario NYXL strings. I have quite a collection of guitars and in doing maintenance I will restring multiple guitars at one time. I was working on a lick in my head and picked up my Les Paul to noodle through the progression. To my surprise the Les Paul was incredibly loud unplugged. It took a second to register that I had put a set of D’Addario NYXLs 10s on the guitar during the last string change a few days earlier. My curiosity forced me to instantly plug in the guitar.
The D’Addario NYXLs as expected are a loud guitar string. What I really like about them is they are loud but balanced. I did notice a slight bump in my mids, not a bad thing. The guitar had a more focused tone and took to effects very clearly and distinctly. The marketing for these strings says the D’Addario NYXLs are 30% stronger than traditional guitar strings. I don’t have a lot of breakage problems but it is good to know I have the extra strength without compromising feel and tension.
I had thrown a set of D’Addario NYXL .09s on my Ibanez shred stick equipped with a Seymour Duncan Dimebucker and a Kahler tremolo when I strung up the Les Paul. It was time to really put these strings to the test. The strings sounded just as good with the Dimebucker’s ceramic magnet pickups as they did with the Les Paul’s alnicos. The balanced tone and punchy mids carried over to the smaller set of strings.
In spite of intense riffing and yanking on the whammy bar the NYXL strings kept tune incredibly well. Even after two weeks of heavy playing on the Les Paul and the Ibanez I am still enjoying great tuning stability, no breakage and incredible tone.
I could go on and on about the streanth and quality of these strings. I think the best thing for you to do is to check out the string tourture test below and see for yourself how impressive the D’Addario NYXLs are.
