Dogal Hellborg Strings

Single round nickel over a round core and low tension... Sounds like a cross between the DR Hellborg and the DR Pure Blues. I played hid DR sigs for a while, but eventually flipped to Pure Blues because they still had that wide frequency response but a bit livelier and of course the lower tension was nice. His single-wrapped E string takes getting used to.
 
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Wow, these strings sure are expensive. $80 bucks? I hope that's the retail list price.

I liked Hellborg's DR strings. I don't think I could use them all the time but they were great for recording, no string noise and very full and punchy sounding.
Dogal are made in Italy and imported by Strings By Mail. Their Carbon Steel (Jaco) Flats are great!
 
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With regard to the stated theory behind these, that stiffness knocks higher overtones out of tune, I accept it. Some threads have covered this well. It's better known in the piano world. (And you can see it on a good tuner.)

My first bass strings were La Bella Jamerson (influenced by Talkbass). I still love La Bella, but as I understood this principle I migrated to thinner La Bella, and then to more flexible types of flats, and then even further, to TIJRs.

Of my basses and strings, TIJRs on a Ric, neck pickup only, has been the most beautiful. But still undecided about the feel and zing. TIJRs must be one of the best, as it's the smoothest I've found, but I'm still undecided.
Still like flats too.
 
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This principle (as mentioned in the Dogal Hellborg marketing verbiage at the above link) - that string stiffness causes higher harmonics on the string to be out of tune (which, as I said, can be seen on a good tuner, and can be heard in a Jamerson low E for example) - has been recognized for a long time in the piano string world (and analysis was published long ago, and piano string construction reflects it). Not controversial.

With regard to bass guitar strings specifically, where the problem isn't as severe as with the thick piano strings but does still matter to many people (thus, Cobalt flats' widely spaced outer winding vs e.g. La Bella DTF), there was also a scholarly analysis published recently (maybe the only such paper dedicated to bass strings specifically, but as I said the principles are the same).

Trouble was, that paper was suitable for a scientific journal and wasn't meant to be readable by the masses, so our introduction to the paper was what a newspaper story said about it. And what the newspaper said about it was a little sensational and ridiculous, and *that* was what was linked to us at TalkBass, unfortunately, and that thread was mostly unfortunate.

So at that time I went directly to what the paper itself said (thanks to a link someone provided), and I came back and reported to TalkBass that the principle was valid and that it would be better to ignore the newspaper story.

Now, this thread appeared.
Thanks to the original poster.
I read the Dogal marketing verbiage at the link given above (and if I recall correctly this is the same thing that DR said about them),

and I came back here to share with y'all my opinion that the claim is legit.
The principle is legit, just tellin' you bro.

Doesn't mean anyone will necessarily like the strings. But many people here do want their higher overtones to be in tune. We await one of those people to spend the money and report back.
 
low tension to me = flexibility
Imagine just the core wire of a normal E string.
Install that, just the core wire.
Tuned to low E, the tension is too low because the mass is so low. Must add mass.

1) Imagine that the mass is added by making the solid steel core wire thicker, as thick as necessary.
or
2) Imagine that the same amount of mass is added by winding other strands of steel over it.

#1 and #2 will have the same *tension* (if they have the same mass per unit length),
but construction #2 results in a string that is more flexible,

much like a chain is more flexible than a steel bar of the same weight.
 
Micro pre-review:

1) Their raison d'être: Are they *more flexible* (as defined above if you need it) than TIJR?
Drum roll...
Tested by hanging each over a finger, etc, the answer is yes. I am confident that these are going to be very clear sounding.

2) Are they smoother than TIJR?
No. Over their woven core (they say), there is only one outer wrap, and this outer wrap is made of larger diameter wire.
The nature of their zing behavior - whether more or less offensive than TIJR - awaits installation.
 
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...more:
Above was a comparison of the E strings.
Moving toward the G strings the difference in flexibility *increases*, and the difference in smoothness *decreases* to the point where the two G strings are about equally smooth, with the Hellborg much more flexible.

I see the core now (with a magnifying glass), wrapped around the ball more than once.
It doesn't look actually woven, but just twisted. Not sure.
Individual strands of the core are in the neighborhood of being as fine as hair.

I'll make a prediction: I guess that they will be less zingy than expected because the stranded core has more "give". We'll see.
 
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