DR Neons gone floppy

[oniman7]

I put some DR Neons on my Ernie Ball Stingray 5 in August. Late November, I played the bass in my garage with my amp and left it on the stand in the garage for what I thought was going to be over night. We went on vacation the next morning and I forgot to bring it in. Came home late at night, woke up the next morning with the flu and didn't leave the bed for a week. Yesterday I finally went out to the garage to retrieve it and it's... different. The string tension is incredibly low at the same tuning as before. Action hasn't changed much noticeably from where it was, but actually seems lower. I get zero zing out of them, even when the G string is popped very hard, and the resistance against me seems lower. The tone is somewhere between dead flats and what I imagine a plucked cello would sound like if you wrapped the bridge with a towel.
Volume is lower as well.

I should mention that I do live in Florida with temperature and humidity changes all over the place... but this is a real puzzle to me. I am going to get new strings for it soon (coated weren't really my thing anyways) and I'm really hoping that is the reason.

 

[Garret Graves]

I wish I had answers for you, but consider this more of a bump for you, I guess.
The properties of metal wouldn't be altered that much by the weather I would imagine could it!? I would guestimate that something has happened with the wood- at the neck perhaps? Altering the distance of the string from the pickup can alter the tone- a warping of the neck might affect that distance a bit, but shouldn't.

 

[oniman7]

I got my bass back today set up and strung with D'addario XL's. Everything is better now. I can only assume it was the strings

 

[FunkRenegade]

Strings naturally lose a bit of tension after the initial install. I noticed the effect more with round core strings.

 

[oniman7]

I've had strings on for 10 months that weren't half this bad. It felt like a poorly made cigar box guitar

 

[Gougedeye]

I have quit using those coated strings for that very reason. They feel like rubber bands to me... very low tension.

 

[One Drop]

I killed a set of Neons, they also lost a lot of tone and output at one point, nothing like dead coated SS rounds which can keep a certain decent tone almost forever.

I didn't really notice a tension difference, though maybe they bounced back less.