Warwick brass frets?

Isn't it weaker than standard fret matetial? I don't think they advertise it as stronger. They claim it's there for tonal reasons, as far as I know.

 

I believe it is probably similar to the EVO Gold fretwire we can get over here? I've had regular nickel, stainless and now EVO fretted basses, and the EVO is my favorite, by far. Very durable, looks great, polishes beautifully and the sound seems to be closer to traditional nickel than stainless. I found the stainless frets I tried for a while to be kind of "clanky" in comparison.

 

There's a chance that Warwick gets their frets from Sintoms; a Russian company (in Minsk) that makes bell bronze fret wire. According to their website, the bronze fret wire is "equal in hardness to super-hard nickel silver". Which would make them pretty much as hard as the EVO frets, I'm guessing. There doesn't seem to be any info about bell bronze hardness, per se; waay too many variables depending on which alloy, where - and when - it was made, etc. I did find a Youtube video about them, though. This guy seems to like the stuff...

 

Quite right. And most brass, bronze and nickel silver hardens the more you work it. So one technique that is sometimes used is to run the fret wire through the bending jig, reverse the bend and run it through again, perhaps a few times.