Martin Authentic Acoustic Guitar Strings - Lifespan 2.0 Treated

Put these on a Martin OM-15 Mahogany and they made a great sounding guitar sound incredible. Not as smooth as Elixir coated strings but I like the tone of these better.

I bought a Martin D16E last year and it came with these strings. And it sounds awesome. So full and rich with shimmering highs and lows you can feel in your gut and it sustains forever.......... I have been using them ever since but I just replaced the saddle with a bone saddle since it came with TUSQ plastic and I had been wanting to lower the action anyway. After doing this work I restrung with Elixir Nanowebs since I had heard good things about them from my Dad who has several vintage Martins and from others. The difference was night and day. I thought I had screwed up my guitar. The Elixir strings were just so flat and they made my expensive guitar sound cheap. No other way to describe it. I could tell right away the lower action was more comfortable and easier to play and the Elixirs felt a bit softer than the Martins. So that was all great but suddenly I was not playing the same guitar at all. I spent a couple hours that night breaking in the Elixirs but the next day the Martins went back on. And again it was night and day. All the great tone I came to expect from the guitar returned and with a bit more punch from the bone saddle. The brilliance of these strings when they are new is astounding and they stay that way for a long time. Even the low E has shimmer to it. And the tone is just what you expect a good guitar to sound like. So full of depth. And they make iconic songs sound the way they should. Like 'Here comes the sun'. The crystal clear tones of that song are spot on with the Martins. But when I played it on the Elixirs my $2K Martin sounded like a $99 starter guitar. I will be trying other strings both coated and un-coated on the Martin as I am curious to see why it sounds so bad with the Elixirs as they are popular strings. But whatever the outcome at least I know I can put the Martin Lifespans back on and get the awesome sound I've come to expect from that guitar. I can't say how they will sound on your guitar but they sound great on mine and last a while.

These are clearly the best treated strings ever made. They sound like regular strings. And definitely last. They sound almost identical to the day they were put on more than a month out. Great singing highs with a nice projecting lower mid range. Idk what these people giving bad reviews are talking about. Dadarrio XS sounds thin in comparison, don't take my word for it, go listen to them. XT are coated so just forget them. They sound dead out of the package. These are the best. Bright, yet warm, projecting yet rich, and still have that Martin growl. I used to HATE Martin strings and will never use coated ones. So for now me to love these, well that's saying something. Martin nailed it. And anyone saying they're fingers are black etc blah blah. That's the dirt and oils from your hands because the strings aren't soaking it up. Wash your hands ffs. I also read someone broke there strings 3 times? Boss just stop. Clearly you had a burr on your saddle or did something else when tuning them. These guys cleary use high quality cores and even if you don't like the sound, them breaking over and over is absurd. Not gonna happen. Btw, speaking on that point, the build quality is great. They are grippy yet dare I say a hair smoother. The finish is great on the phosphor wrap. Nice and shiny. And the ball wraps are done beautifully and tight. Much different than past Martin strings. They cleary are taking the string market seriously now. I've tried every single brand of string, from every country, and the best phosphors I've played are GHS Phosphor, GHS Americana, Martin authentic 2.0, Newtone masterclass and newtone masterclass double wound. That's a serious group that Martin just joined. Good on them 👍

Very impressed, so far! Decided to give these a try after always having used the blue daddario XS strings. Blown away by the tone and feel. Depending on how long they last will determine whether or not I stick with them. I’ll try to remember to update this once I experience a noticeable change in both tone and feel.

It’s Martin. Of course it’s excellent.

Sound good

Because maybe I'm OCD or something I refuse to buy any other strings for my Martin than the ones that came on it or at least the same brand of strings. Most new Martins come with their Acoustic SP coated strings (source: Martin FAQ) if you bought yours between 2016 and 2019. I went to Guitar Center originally and asked for Martin Acoustic SP strings and they gave me these instead. I thought the packaging was just different but I guess Martin actually made some sort of changes to how they make the strings and that whole "2.0" on the packaging is not just marketing hype. With all that said, I don't think there's that much of a difference between the two but just know that there is one. Now on to how they sound and all that. First off, these are long lasting strings. I've seen guys keep a set of Martin SP strings on their guitars for literally years and while they don't sound good at all they're still playable. If you're a normal player, you could probably get away with changing these out once a month or even less often if you're a light player. I tend to just go by sound and feel so I end up changing them every three weeks on average. For people with sweaty hands like me, what's nice about these is that they don't gunk up the lighter, unwound strings even after some heavy use. I've used other coated/long lasting strings for acoustics and electrics like EB Paradigms and NYXLs and these Martin strings beat them hands down in terms of keeping that black gunk off the strings and keeping it shiny longer. These strings tend to have a longer break-in period (at least in my opinion) than other acoustic strings. They sound really bright and have a lot of attack for longer. I'm not the biggest fan of that sound but once that phase is over they have a beautiful warm tone that really brings out the unique sound of your guitar. Whenever I put on a new set it always feels like the action got higher but after playing for a bit things settle and the strings sound and feel like they've been a part of the guitar forever. I would describe the sound of these strings as warm with a lot of attack and sustain. Compared to the regular (or previous - not sure what you want to call them) SP strings they're a bit stiffer and not as warm but that's only compared to the strings that come on the guitar. On their own or compared to most other brands these are warm, long lasting, strings with a lot of attack especially when new.

Martin strings for my Martin guitar. These are the same strings that are on the guitar when you buy it. Rather than experiment with other brands I decided to stick with what Martin remends. Glad I did.