G'day darls,
I just bought a Stingray (about 2 months ago), anyay the strings that it came with, Ernie Balls, obviously, are filthy and pretty old sounding.
The thing is: I bought some new trings (so I could have that twangy metallic new sound again)..put the new strings on and took them straight off again!

Older strings sound better on my Stingray?

They sound warmer and softer, slapping is not quite so responsive and thumpy - - more deep, warm and boomy, more tonal.

Does anyone else have this experience?

It depends on what type of new strings you buy. Stainless steel round wounds always sound too bright to me when they are new and sort of "scratchy".

I prefer nickel strings for this reason, which mellow out after a few days, but still retain growl and good definition on harmonics.

But if you really want a warmer softer sound over definition, then you should probably be looking at flatwounds or tapewounds. Personally, I like to use round wounds for versatility - so you can slap/pop and play artificial harmonics easily.

But it all depends on what you want to do and what sort of music you are playing - there are the "classic" stories about how people like James Jamerson and Bernard Edwards never changed their strings at all and the former particularly liked them better the older they were. Edwards play a MM Stingray as well and there is a famous interview where he was asked what strings he used and replied something like "what strings do MMs come with?"