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Best site for deals on strings?

#23
Maybe I got unlucky but my purchases from fret nation have all taken a long time to ship. Once, there was an inventory error and it took a week or longer to get any communication from them. Also, any inquiries into strings that weren’t in stock went either completely unanswered or took longer than a week to get a response. And any follow up questions were ignored. Don’t care who you are, there are too many other vendors who offer much better service than that. Take my self-judgement with a grain of salt, but I’m not an unreasonable customer and only asked simple questions.

EDIT: I’m all for supporting small businesses and tend to give them several chances. Fret Nation dropped the ball on every chance I gave them and I will not be spending money there again.
 
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#24
michael_t said:
Maybe they closed down because they were selling them too cheap with little profit? ;)

Get in touch with Jason at Fret Nation at [email protected] and see what he can do for you. I've dealt with him for the last 10 yrs because he always gives me "package deals". If you're willing to buy them in multiple sets at a time, I'm sure he can work out a good deal for you.
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This. Jason at Fret Nation is great. I have also had luck with juststrings.com

If you are in Canada, you can also try clubbass.ca, but I have been buying from Jason lately pretty much exclusively. He has been awesome to work with and has done what he can to minimize shipping costs.
 
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#27
+1 for FretNation being a great place to buy strings. I've had nothing but positive interactions with the folks there.

StringsByMail (Invalid Link Removed) is a good place too. The folks there have been pretty nice to me too.

I've also heard a lot of good things about GimmeSomeStrings Instrument strings and more for everyone | GimmeSomeStrings. Their site is a little cumbersome to navigate, but I hear their customer service is great. I've never used them, but others on TalkBass have.
 
#28
Stagelab said:
Looking for a site that has a good deal on strings. I used to get D’Adarrio nickels for $13 a pack but the site I got them from closed down a while back. Tired of paying $20-$22 per pack from the big retailers and my google search yielded a couple strings sites but none had great deals.

Any suggestions?
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Google?

Theres a bumch of companies selling strings online.
 
#29
My next electric guitar string purchase will be to try out String Joy. The relevant thing is that they do some custom sets at a normal price and have a spec for a Crafty tuning set where I can just order the set and not have to do individual strings. They do make their own strings so we will see how that goes.

Otto
 
#30
It would be great if Fret Nation posts here again so we can have our string answers answered, but @michael_t is pretty knowledgeable.

Here's the TB string work flow. State your problem or desired outcome - other's chime in TI flats will be recommended regardless even if you can only afford Ramen for lunch, for sure unless you are asking about drop tuning -- Michael does the triage and points you to a sane direction --> you order from FretNation and the sun will shine tomorrow.
 
#32
I used to use the D'Addario nickels as well. I order from Thomann USA from time to time and decided to try the Harley Benton nickels since they have my gauge, (.40 - .95). They sound good, on my bass they last about the same as the D'Addarios, and even with overseas UPS my last order of 10 sets came out to $8.59 a pack.
 
#34
Relsom said:
I buy my strings from Jeff Bezos. He even drives them to my house for free.
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Okay, I gotta admit. I just bought a bundle of 3 sets of Pure Blues from Strings and Beyond since they've got a buy 2 get 1 free thing going on right now that averages out to $16.66 per set. Free Shipping and no tax charged. That's a deal even Jeff Bezos can't beat.
 
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#35
ofajen said:
My next electric guitar string purchase will be to try out String Joy. The relevant thing is that they do some custom sets at a normal price and have a spec for a Crafty tuning set where I can just order the set and not have to do individual strings. They do make their own strings so we will see how that goes.

Otto
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I liked my Stringjoy sets well enough, but they do that thing that a bunch of companies these days do and were literally sending me spam/marketing emails once or twice a day every single day after my purchase, despite my specifically opting out of emails. They lost my business based on that alone.
 
#36
I have not bought the string from AliExpress before, but I placed an order a couple of days ago. On there you can find green Elixir, various Earnie Ball, Alice, GHS for under $10 per set. There are also larger package deals that makes it even cheaper. They also have D'Addario but not as plentiful and for considerably more (still less than $22). I have no Idea why it is that cheap from there. I doubt these are counterfeit strings as that would have become a public knowledge by now. Perhaps this bypasses a couple of brother-gotta-eat middleman and/or an importation tax, cutting off neither of which will cause me to loose my sleep. Unfortunately, delivery is at least 2-weeks and if the product crap, it is a lot harder to return. A few things that I have bought so far was as good of a quality as buying the same things from the local resellers. Perhaps Elixirs, Earnie Ball, and all that are made in Asia somewhere and this is more or less direct sale. For example there no SIT or DR strings on Aliexpress as these are USA made, and perhaps make no sense to sell them there against the mentioned brands.
 
#37
kgbeast said:
I have not bought the string from AliExpress before, but I placed an order a couple of days ago. On there you can find green Elixir, various Earnie Ball, Alice, GHS for under $10 per set. There are also larger package deals that makes it even cheaper. They also have D'Addario but not as plentiful and for considerably more (still less than $22). I have no Idea why it is that cheap from there. I doubt these are counterfeit strings as that would have become a public knowledge by now. Perhaps this bypasses a couple of brother-gotta-eat middleman and/or an importation tax, cutting off neither of which will cause me to loose my sleep. Unfortunately, delivery is at least 2-weeks and if the product crap, it is a lot harder to return. A few things that I have bought so far was as good of a quality as buying the same things from the local resellers. Perhaps Elixirs, Earnie Ball, and all that are made in Asia somewhere and this is more or less direct sale. For example there no SIT or DR strings on Aliexpress as these are USA made, and perhaps make no sense to sell them there against the mentioned brands.
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Ernie Ball and Elixir are both made ONLY in the USA. There isn’t a single notable string brand made anywhere in Asia. If you buy a name brand set from AliExpress for less than $10 they one trillion percent are counterfeit. The fakes have evolved to the point to where even minor details of the packaging is duplicated perfectly. There are some YouTube clips doing the comparisons.
 
#38
tindrum said:
Ernie Ball and Elixir are both made ONLY in the USA. There isn’t a single notable string brand made anywhere in Asia. If you buy a name brand set from AliExpress for less than $10 they one trillion percent are counterfeit. The fakes have evolved to the point to where even minor details of the packaging is duplicated perfectly. There are some YouTube clips doing the comparisons.
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Thanks for pointing this up. I did not think this is still done.
 
#39
Well, scrap the AliExpress then... I do not want someone to wait two weeks and get a sub-par set of strings. AliExpress is like HarborFreight, there are loads of products that are very poor quality, but there are few items that are quite exceptional. I recently had a pretty good run there and perhaps became too optimistic with my expectations. So yes, exercising a common sense and taming your expectations when buying an inexpensive product is the things to do. I wonder now how many of counterfeit string options are available through Amazon. I am new to bass, but been into guitars for well over a decade. I bought strings only from Guitar Center, and basicity only D'Addario XL. Recently I did order Roto strings from Amazon an I like them. Comparing to Guitar Center prices, it is not that big of a difference though. I have ventured on occasion to some Chinese strings such as Orphee, which are quieter, but tone is fine, some other were just dreadful. If that is what Elixir from Ali is, I would rater pay $25 for D'Addario or Rotosound. Now that I ordered a set of Elixirs from Ali, I will have to get a set of real ones from GC to pay my dues to the actual Elixir.... Who knows maybe, I will become an exclusive Elixir user after that as I have never used Elixir strings before and have no clue if they are any good. Sorry for my poorly thought through post above, I wish I could delete it.
 
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