Ok, I know fresh strings make a lot of difference, but I'm not an acoustic player.

I own too many electric guitars to be able to afford restringing for the sake of it.

On electrics I seem to prefer really old dulled strings,
as long as they still hold their tuning.

I tend to roll the tone control almost completely off anyway,
to reduce harsh shrill tones.

Our basss player kept the same strings on for over 20 years until the singer bought him a new set
and forced him to change them.