Ernie Ball Titanium Reinforced Coated Strings

I have very acidic sweat. It takes no time for me to corrode a brand new set of strings, which can get expensive since I play a lot. My sweat will even eat through bridge finishes and render screws and other metal parts useless. Enter the Ernie Ball TRT (Titanium Reinforced Technology) Coated guitar strings. I have been skeptical of coated strings ever since they came out many years ago, but I am a big fan of Ernie Ball strings so I thought I'd give them a try.

The coated Ernie Ball strings have the typical coating on the wound strings and a corrosion resistant "plating" on the plain strings, in addition to a titanium wrap at the ball-end. Due to the long lifespan of these strings, I suppose Ernie Ball wanted to bolster the durability of the ball-end of the string with the titanium wrap to help prevent breakage there over time. Pretty cool idea.

I have installed a set of Ernie Ball TRT Coated .10s on my R7 Goldtop Les Paul that is outfitted with a pair of WCR pickups (Crossroads bridge, Crossroads neck). Only time will tell if they out last the D'Addario .10s I normally use on my Pauls. However, I can report that the tone is slightly different that a non-coated set. I can hear less top end overall, but they do sound and feel ok. Much better than I expected... and if the coated technology is as good as people say, these strings should end up sounding better than most uncoated strings over their lifespan, since the top end frequencies of uncoated strings rapidly begin to fade (at least for me) soon after they are played in.

The jury is still out on these. I got this pack for a little over $5 with tax, but they normally list for around $9 per pack. Musician's Friend has them listed at $7.99 per pack. At this price I'll have to determine just how long they do last in order to see if it even makes sense money-wise to buy coated strings at all. So far, they've passed the "tone test"... now we'll see how corrosion resistant they are.

I'll post a follow up in month or so.