I have no direct experience with Elixers other than they sounded great on an acoustic bass I had for awhile. They seemed to last a long time in that application.

But I have had several phone reports from folks, while talking about pickup installations, that Elixers are more susceptible to breakage, especially the G string. The concern arose because the pickups I recommend may require several placement trials, requiring loosening the strings, then retuning to test the placement of the pickup.

The first guy I talked to about this took me by surprise. He said he had a case of Elixers, so he had to use them up. He was clearly dismayed by the need to repeatedly loosen and then retune the strings, as he was certain he would break the G string every time. I suggested he mightwant to buy one set of some other brand for his trials.

This fellow stated that in his opinion, Elixer uses a slightly thinner gauge inner core before winding the strings, and that this was the reason for the frequent breakage. He also stated he did some measurements, but I have no idea if his measurements were accurate. Even if they were, that does not prove that Elixers are prone to breakage.

But I have had a few other folks, (like two or three), other folks tell me of similar experiences, and were hesitant to repeatedly detune and retune the Elixers. I know this evidence is only anecdotal. But our band's guitarist, David, does not use Elixers. David likes to use multiple strange tunings throughout a night. In fact we organize our set lists based on his tunings. Even with Pearse or Di Addarios, he pops a string once in a while, so it seems that using Elixers might make matters worse. Thanks, BlueJay