A professional musician friend of mine, way back in the 70s, was on the point of selling his D41 - he couldn’t get the sound he wanted and it wouldn’t stay in tune. A young lad turned up to buy it and asked if he could try it with new strings. He came prepared with a set of new fangled (then) d’addario phosphor bronze strings which completely transformed the guitar. So much so that he paid the lad for the strings and kept it.

I’ve used d’Addario PBs since they were first produced in 1974 (have a look at this month’s Guitarist magazine) and have never been tempted to change. I’ve generally used J17s but the last time I re-strung the D18 I used J16s. On guitars which don’t get played much though, I tend to use Elixir and if US made strings get much more expensive, I might go over to Newtone. No time soon though - I’ve quite a large stock.