Martin Authentic Acoustic Guitar Strings, Superior Performance Custom 11.5-47, Silk & HT Steel

These strings are similar to the monel strings Toney Rice used. Nickel strings. They are just sulked. Really are warm! No bright overtones. You can hear the actual voice of the guitar. The 11.5 - 47 tension, are so easy to play. Far more easy on left hand. Especially with a low action. Try them out! You won’t be sorry. Try them with a Dawg style pick. Phenomenal tone!

My Martin guitar, which I recently purchased, came with 54/12 gauge strings! I knew I would remove them, so I ordered Martin 47/11.5 strings! That solved my playability problem! The strings sound beautiful, bright and articulate!! And I can now play for hours without finger pain!! Very good strings!!!

They are Martins, they are excellent! BUY THEM, YOU WON'T REGRET IT! The sweetest sounding strings I have ever played on, and I have been playing for 28 years, so I think I may know a thing or to about guitar strings!

Ordered 2 packs of Silk & Steel, and got only one pack. The second set turned out to be 12 gauge 80/20. Love the Silk & Steel for a nice warm, mellow balance. Don’t let that one video fool you though, the guy just doesn’t know how to properly set up his guitar.

I typically run 80/20 bronze 12s on my Martin 00 14 fret. They're my go to. To switch it up, I tried these Martin MA130 Silk and Steel. I had to slacken the truss rod about 1/4 turn to maintain the action where I like it. They aren't as loud as the 80/20 lights, but they still sound quite robust and well balanced, while being easier to play.Tone: They push the guitar toward the classical end of the spectrum in sound and feel-especially the wound strings. They also manage good resonance and decent sustain while cutting back the sympathetic harmonics between strings.Feel: Responsive and easier to play, of course, with over 40#s less tension than I'm use to with the 80/20 lights.

I've had these on my Breedlove Stage Concert acoustic for several days now. I have used Elixir and D'Addarrio mostly, but those were 13's and 12's and just tough to play on. I use 9.5's on my electrics, so I thought hey I wonder if there's an 11.5 gauge for acoustic... These were the only ones I've found so far.I couldn't find an answer before they arrived but wanted to share they are indeed steel strings (I mostly had concerns about the makeup of the B and high E), so the silk part is either at the ball end and/or part of an inner wrap on the wound strings. Also, I believe the gentleman that posted a video here saying these are horrible don't buy them possibly had his high E and G tuned an octave too low or something - it didn't sound quite right in the clip nor anything like mine did when I got it tuned up proper.Nice warm tone in my opinion. Quite a looser feel compared to the other brands/gauges I've tried so far. I can definitely do a full step bend on acoustic now when tuned to standard pitch. But I also sanded about 1/16th of an inch off my saddle when I changed to these so I'm not entirely sure how much of the change was doing that versus the strings themselves. 1/16th is not that much though.First impression, these strings may be my new personal choice for my acoustic. I'll update the review if something goes haywire later.

For Dreadnoughts and other large body guitars, I agree with other reviewers, these strings are easy on the fingers but overly bright and lack body and volume of heavier strings. Now, put them on a small body guitar and it's completely different kettle of fish, as they say. I have a couple of small body guitars and I've always been frustrated with the boominess of the low E, A and D strings. As you know, if you have one, the short scale means you need thicker strings to maintain tension. The problem with this is that the lower wound strings can sound boomy as they overdrive the small spruce or mahogany top. To solve this, I went to StingJoy and bought a $20 set of custom 12-47s. It worked! To my ears, my Dreadnaught Junior and McPherson Touring guitars sounded so much more balanced while maintaining tension top to bottom. Now, to save money, I have turned to Martin MA130 Silk and Steel strings. I am willing to give up a bit of tone to save $13 per set. If you have a small body guitar, you should test these affordable strings and see if you agree with me.

I have tried many dif brands silk steel combo strings on my acoustic Taylor and now my Gibson 45, in the hopes of finding a more even sound from all the strings. Tried these yesterday at church on my Gibson. They are lovely, esp w finger picking. My new favorites.