I recently wrote an article about D’Addario’s EJ16 guitar strings and told how long they normally lasted. Believe it or not, one of their employees read the review and sent me a Tweet on Twitter telling me to try their EXP16 strings because they were their longest lasting guitar strings. I told him that if I got my hands on a set I would try them out. Well, a few months later D’Addario was holding a contest and I was able to get a free set of strings of my choice and I decided to go with the EXP16s to try them out.
EXP16 String gauge chart:
E .012
B .016
G .024
D .032
A .042
E .053
Sound quality and durability
As far as sound Quality goes, I would compare them a lot to the EJ16 phosphor bronze strings, so if you have owned those you know what to expect out of the EXP16 guitar strings. The EXP16 guitar strings have a bright clear sound and are great for strumming, bluegrass, country, and blues. However, as time has passed I have noticed that they have mellowed out to having a warmer sounding tone to them, which personally I actually like.
The strings are a bit stiff so you can’t bend them as easily as lighter gauged strings. Depending on your playing style you may find the stiffness of the strings to cause problems. In my opinion the strings feel smoother when you slide your fingers across the strings, but since I now have calluses from years of practice beginners may not find them to be as pleasant.
All of the strings have held up and I haven’t had any problems with them breaking on me yet. To test how long their sound lasted I decided to clean the strings every day after playing and to wash my hands before touching the strings to try and maximize their string life to see how they would decay over time. I have also kept a chart keeping track of the day I put them on so I can look back at their total life span.
I have currently had the strings on my guitar for about a month now and so far they have held their tuning, and more or less their sound. I haven’t seen any signs of oxidization yet. Most of my strings last about two months (with light everyday practice) before they start to corrode, and after about three months they are brittle to the touch and flat in sound. After four to five months of everyday practice I normally start looking around to replace them with new strings because they start breaking soon after that. On the back of the package it says that these strings are D’Addario’s most natural sounding and longest lasting strings available, so the point of this review is to see if that is true. If they can last longer than their EJ16 strings then they are worth their price, if not I would say to stick with the cheaper set of guitar strings. If you normally put new strings on before you play a gig and discard them afterwards, than these will do just fine.
As far as sound quality goes, yes they sound beautiful. String life? I’m not so sure yet because I just recently put them on my guitar. I will come back and give updates to tell you how they decay over time.
Until then, I would recommend these strings for their sound quality and feel. You can read more about the D’Addario EXP16 strings on the right side of this article at the D’Addario official website, and you can buy them at most musical stores and at Amazon for around $9.50 USD.
