Letter from Daddario
sheetsofsound
concerns about D’Addario string quality and I am deeply interested in
your opinions and perceptions of our products and company. I’d like to
address each of your comments:
1. Breaking Strings. At D’Addario we utilize the highest quality raw
materials that can be sourced. We test every batch of wire for
elongation and tensile properties to ensure it meets our standards. We
reject a notable amount of wire based on our qualifications.
Additionally, we integrally involved in the advancement of wire
technology in order to make better performing string. From time to
time, strings break, but you should not be experiencing repetitive
breakage. However, we are not perfect and your problem concerns me. I
would like to know more details about where the strings broke and if
you have any packaging (specifically our corrosion bag Q-code that’s
printed on the bag), this is very helpful to us in determining if
there is a wire supply issue. We will be happy to replace the broken
strings for you. You can contact our customer service representative
directly cr-fr...@daddario.com. I will personally make sure you are
taken care of to your satisfaction.
2. Counterfeit D’Addario Strings. Recently there has been an
unprecedented surge in counterfeit D’Addario Strings. So much so that
in July we have instituted a unique serial numbering system so every
set of D’Addario strings has a unique number that can be searched for
on our website www.daddario.com\playreal. While we cannot guarantee
that every string we produce is perfect the only way we can learn from
our mistakes is by asking our customer to return any defective
D’Addario string they may have purchased. It also helps us to identify
if counterfeit product has been sold to our loyal D’Addario users.
3. Cutting Corners. I understand there is a perception that some big
companies cut corners in order to save money or become greedy at the
expense of their customers. At D’Addario this could not be further
from the truth. We have remained dedicated to manufacturing strings in
the United States and have chosen to refrain from taking our brand and
expertise outside the US (to Mexico or China, for example) as some
have chosen to do in order to save money on labor, taxes, expenses,
overhead, etc. Instead we have chosen to reinvest a significant
portion of our profits into our people, intellectual property and
technologies to make a better, more consistent string without
sacrificing US jobs or our customer’s satisfaction. I know this might
seem hard to believe, but we are big company that is still run like a
small company. We do our best to listen to our customers and respond
to the market with a quality, valuable product. This is the D’Addario
way, always has been and will continue to be.
4. Ball End Changes. Over the past couple of years, we have
experimented with a variety of ball end materials and coloring
options. There were many strategic and business reasons for this,
however, combating piracy (we do have a growing counterfeit problem)
and cutting costs were not the reasons. After some experimentation, we
opted to invest in our own ball end painting machines, so our newest
ball ends are more consistent with the original colors. However, there
was some time where the colors were more “metallic” looking and some
of the colors, such as red, did not maintain their color to our
standards or liking. So, we changed again in order to make it right.
There is no correlation to the color of a ball end and the performance
of the string, I can assure you, however I do recognize how the
appearance of the ball ends might create the perception that strings
are different in some way. Again, we have moved back to a more primary
color tone and restored the strings to their traditional appearance
and specs.
5. Brass-plated Core Wire. I encourage you to visit our web site to
read all about our “clean wire” initiative www.daddario.com/saves . We
have been using brass-plated cores on our acoustic strings for years
and have recently switched most of our electric strings to this
material. This wire is still composed of high carbon steel, but has a
micro plating of brass vs. traditional tin plating. There are many
reasons this wire is far superior to traditional tin-plated wire. For
one, the tensile/durability properties are far superior. This wire is
more consistent, longer lasting, and stronger than conventional core
wire. We have a dedicated team of metallurgists who have helped us to
develop this wire, which is not only better, but also more
environmentally friendly. This is a personal commitment of mine,
dating back to our original environmental packaging in the early 90s.
There are many details on this wire on the website, so if you are
interested, I encourage you to read the story. Again, it’s not about
saving money, we are working to make a better product while doing our
part to sustaining our planet. We would never sacrifice our reputation
and consistency to cut corners for a short sided profit motivation. I
won’t allow it.
6. Customer Service Response. If anyone at our company has neglected
to reply to you or has not resolved a situation to your satisfaction,
please let me know. I am providing a special e-mail address for you to
securely send me your personal contact information, so we can follow
up with all of you on specific issues. js...@daddario.com.
Thank you for your comments and honest opinions. I hope I’ve addressed
your concerns and I look forward to hearing from each of you. I love
the medium of the web and the learning opportunity it presents. When I
started the business in the early 70s, we traveled to music festivals
and guitar shows to talk to players and learn. This is the only way to
know your customer and therefore know yourself, so this approach is
very, very important to me and our company.
Best Regards,
Jim D’Addario
Joey Goldstein
He's aware that we're talking about his products' problems, and he's
willing to replace any defective strings.
*BUT*
He talked about everything *except* the problems that we've actually
been experiencing and talking about here.
Who the f... cares about the colour on the ball ends?
What we care about is that the ball ends are coming loose from the strings.
He made no mention of the quality control problems with the flat-wound
processing of their Chromes brand strings.
All he talked about was how good their quality control is.
Sheesh.
--
Joey Goldstein
<http://www.joeygoldstein.com>
<http://homepage.mac.com/josephgoldstein/AudioClips/audio.htm>
joegold AT primus DOT ca
sheetsofsound
> That's great.
> He's aware that we're talking about his products' problems, and he's
> willing to replace any defective strings.
>
> *BUT*
> He talked about everything *except* the problems that we've actually
> been experiencing and talking about here.
>
> Who the f... cares about the colour on the ball ends?
> What we care about is that the ball ends are coming loose from the strings.
>
> He made no mention of the quality control problems with the flat-wound
> processing of their Chromes brand strings.
> All he talked about was how good their quality control is.
>
> Sheesh.
send an email to the address in the posting.
pmfan57
And he also said you could email him directly.
Joey Goldstein
I will, when I'm ready to ship a box of bad strings to them.
I've only got 4 in front of me right now from the last few weeks.
I shouldn't have thrown away the others I had in the past, at least 10
of them.
335
> That's great.
> He's aware that we're talking about his products' problems, and he's
> willing to replace any defective strings.
>
> *BUT*
> He talked about everything *except* the problems that we've actually
> been experiencing and talking about here.
>
> Who the f... cares about the colour on the ball ends?
> What we care about is that the ball ends are coming loose from the strings.
>
> He made no mention of the quality control problems with the flat-wound
> processing of their Chromes brand strings.
> All he talked about was how good their quality control is.
>
issue of broken strings. He asked for more information so they could
track the problem, gave a customer service number, offered to replace
the bad strings, and offered to take care of take of it personally.
That's all good. I would have prefered more specific information too,
but based on this response, I think the guy deserves a chance. If they
can't get the quality aspect of it together than it's time to move on.
Five Sharp
years. They never break and stay on for at least 2 years before I replace
them, mostly due to intonation problems.
#####
"335" <335p...@gmail.com> schreef in bericht
news:c0905bd9-82ba-478b...@26g2000yqo.googlegroups.com...
On Dec 15, 11:48 am, Joey Goldstein <nos...@nowhere.net> wrote:
> That's great.
> He's aware that we're talking about his products' problems, and he's
> willing to replace any defective strings.
>
> *BUT*
> He talked about everything *except* the problems that we've actually
> been experiencing and talking about here.
>e them.
jim
"Five Sharp" <hjg.o...@onsbrabantnet.nl> wrote in message
news:4b27d500$0$5959$6d5e...@onsnet.xlned.com...
> String breakage????? D' Addario 0.12 chromes have been on all my guitars
for
> years. They never break and stay on for at least 2 years before I replace
> them, mostly due to intonation problems.
>
> #####
>
problem. Interesting.
Jim
charles robinson
Me too, my current set of Chromes has been on for about 9 mos. with no
breakage loss of intonation etc.I've used them for years with no problems,
Charlie
Derek
rough spots occassionally, and had some breakage.
TI's were recommended to me, I have since switched, and have found
them to be the best flats I have ever played.
I still use DA rounds on my strat and tele, no problems there.
TD
> "Five Sharp" <hjg.onst...@onsbrabantnet.nl> wrote in message
Never had a problem either, but I know some fellows who have. Jim D.
did bring up the fact of counterfeiting, which I had never been aware
of. Breaking strings, dead strings, ball in the jack, unravelling; all
into the ozone comes under the heading of 'defective', and I have
always know JD to honor his product and keep his word. Just send him
the strings or just the story. He will make good on it.
-TD
Joey Goldstein
Well, we should expect that the majority of people don't have these
types of problems with D'Addario's strings because if they did,
D'Addario would be out of business by now.
Maybe I'm coming across more problems than the average user because I
change my strings more often than you guys do.
When I first noticed the problem with some Chromes not being completely
flat-wound it was several years ago and I just chalked it up to a bad
run from the factory.
But I'm *still* getting the same problem in newly purchased sets of strings.
I also buy 10-packs of individual Chromes, in case I break a string, and
several of these have had the same problem.
This business with the ball-ends coming away from the string is new to
me. I hope I don't have as much trouble in that area as Tom Painter and
others here have been having.
I still don't intend to switch away from Chromes, at the moment.
sheetsofsound
Joey Goldstein
Oh yeah, almost forgot.
I've also had problems recently with Chromes not being able to intonate
properly.
Eg. Recently I had an A string that had to have the bridge saddle *way*
in front (i.e. closer to the nut) than the D string's saddle.
Five Sharp
> them to be the best flats I have ever played.
>
totally dead and rusty relatively quickly (at least for my taste for extreme
longevity) unlike the chromes that I have used up to 3 years on a guitar
once. I've had a few sets of TIs for years and still can't bring myself to
put them on my other guitars, satisfied as I am with the D'Addario chromes.
They sound better too IMHO than the TIs I used.
#####
Michael L Kankiewicz
>
> *BUT*
> He talked about everything *except* the problems that we've actually been
> experiencing and talking about here.
> Who the f... cares about the colour on the ball ends?
> What we care about is that the ball ends are coming loose from the strings.
Joey - I'm as much a consumer advocate as the next person, probably
more, but I think he should be commended for what appears to be a sincere
concern and effort about getting to the root of the problem. And, his
comments about the ball color change and it's non-relationship to string
breakage were very clear to me - some users might think that the color
change might coincide with which ones were bad.
MK
Marty
D'Addario now (TI is my current favorite), but I've used them for
decades, and I've never had any of the problems listed. I'd really
encourage everyone with problems to check those serial numbers - it
could very be that the strings are counterfeits.
Marty
Lun
For me, the ball ends broke or came off a couple of times. No issues
with strings breaking. Strings do break from time to time anyway.
Jon Fox
I changed from Chromes to TIs, and found the TIs to be much better balanced
from string to string. I always liked the tone of the Chromes, but found
them to be a bit boomy on the bottom end. Problem solved with the TIs.
Jon
--
*************************************
Jon Fox
Instructor of Commercial Music
McLennan Community College
www.jonfoxjazz.com
pmfan57
I found the chromes to always be the smoothest flat wounds. TI's I
have had a lot more trouble with.
Five Sharp
have had a lot more trouble with.
Yeah somehow TIs "feel" less comfortable to me too.
#####
335
i had about the same experience with TI. Now with the dollar being so
weak, the TIs are almost 20 dollars a set in the states.
Gerry
strings in just the past few months. For those who have not
experienced the problems but have used strings purchased a year or two
ago, likely the bad strings had not made it into the food chain yet.
Rick Stone
> String breakage????? D' Addario 0.12 chromes have been on all my guitars
> for years. They never break and stay on for at least 2 years before I
> replace them, mostly due to intonation problems.
I've used the D'Addario Chromes for about 25 years and NEVER had a
problem with breakage until recently. I use an .013 on my first string
and about 6 months ago, I had 3 of them break in a row, ALL on gigs and
ALL right at the ball end. This seemed really weird and my first
thought was that something had happened to my tailpiece (Bill Comins
newer design uses a brass claw to hold the strings and I thought that it
had somehow become rough or chipped). Comins sent me a replacement
tailpiece and I haven't broken any E strings since then. Can't really
see anything wrong with the tailpiece I took off though, and now suspect
the strings.
Rick Stone
email: rick...@rickstone.com
website: www.rickstone.com
epk: www.sonicbids.com/rickstone
Other sites: www.myspace.com/rickstonemusic
www.facebook.com/rickstonemusic www.reverbnation.com/rickstone
www.youtube.com/jazzand www.cdbaby.com/all/jazzand
http://jazzguitarny.ning.com
Mark Cleary
problems. Sent UPS in about 4 days I am not complaining but hopefully
they don't have the same problems.
--
Deacon Mark Cleary
Epiphany Roman Catholic Church
Des Higgins
> String breakage????? D' Addario 0.12 chromes have been on all my guitars for
> years. They never break and stay on for at least 2 years before I replace
> them, mostly due to intonation problems.
>
If I can remember correctly, from an older string thread, if the
strings go off, you can then boil them for a bit (in water) to re-
invigourate them. At least, legend has it, that is what bass players
did.
Des
charles robinson
That was tried here by a Dr. Yee who used to post with the newsgroup. His
report was that it didn't work. When I was a kid I tried that and it did
clean the strings but the intonation was shot.
Charlie
lukejazz
wrote:
Yes, it cleans the strings so that they may sound a bit brighter, but
there is of course no way to re-round flat spots, etc.
Lukejazz
steve
On 15-Dec-2009, Des Higgins <dazzh...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> If I can remember correctly, from an older string thread, if the
> strings go off, you can then boil them for a bit (in water) to re-
> invigourate them. At least, legend has it, that is what bass players
> did.
I'd like to know how anyone discovered that. I mean, what crazy fucker
decided to boil his old strings, and why?
--
"If I have seen farther than others, it's because I'm standing knee deep in
intellectual midgets."
Greg Cochrane
lukejazz
Not that big of a deal with bass strings - guitar strings? nah!
L
pmfan57
I did have a set of Roger Sadowsky flatwounds that came on my Heritage
that were exceptionally nice. Maybe I should buy more of those.
Bill Godwin
> On Dec 15, 12:48 pm, Joey Goldstein <nos...@nowhere.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > That's great.
> > He's aware that we're talking about his products' problems, and he's
> > willing to replace any defective strings.
>
> > *BUT*
> > He talked about everything *except* the problems that we've actually
> > been experiencing and talking about here.
>
> > Who the f... cares about the colour on the ball ends?
> > What we care about is that the ball ends are coming loose from the strings.
>
> > He made no mention of the quality control problems with the flat-wound
> > processing of their Chromes brand strings.
> > All he talked about was how good their quality control is.
>
> > Sheesh.
>
> send an email to the address in the posting.
I sent an email yesterday thanking Jim for the post on this group and
explaining I'd had issues with the ball falling out of the d string. I
had a response in this morning's inbox! They wanted me to send the
strings back but I'd thrown them out.They offered to send
replacements as well. I really was surprised to see this as I really
expected they were too big too care.
If it happens again I'll send them the strings!
Bill Godwin
Joe Finn
news:87901e8f-dbba-442d...@p32g2000vbi.googlegroups.com...
>>-TD
Evidently this has been a substantial problem. The D'addario strings I have
used have been fine though. I've yet to run into any quality control issues.
....joe
--
Visit me on the web www.JoeFinn.net
Marty
Bassists started it - an upright set of strings is over $100, so
there's incentive to try to stretch that out. (Never complain about
the price of TI guitar strings to a upright player...)
TD
>
> - Show quoted text -
Tell him that you threw them out already and say that I said it's cool
to send you a set gratis, man.
-TD
Bg
> On 15-Dec-2009, Des Higgins <dazzhigg...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > If I can remember correctly, from an older string thread, if the
> > strings go off, you can then boil them for a bit (in water) to re-
> > invigourate them. At least, legend has it, that is what bass players
> > did.
>
> I'd like to know how anyone discovered that. I mean, what crazy fucker
> decided to boil his old strings, and why?
> --
I think it was Barney Kessel that talked about doing that many years
ago, I read somewhere a long time ago.
Bg
pmfan57
Makes a delicious soup stock?
Bg
> > I think it was Barney Kessel that talked about doing that many years
> > ago, I read somewhere a long time ago.
> > Bg
>
>
> - Show quoted text -
E A D G B E Yup, Alphabet soup
BG