The down-bearing should be the same wether the string is wound or plain! You either are not taking the down-bearing reading correctly or you have altered the path of the string in some way. ???????? The change of wound strings from plain wire, in the "break" area is a common thing to do, in order to balance the Impedance and Inharmonicity between the long bridge and the bass bridge. This should be an improvement. Oh, IF the hitch area is not conducive to the standard "English Loop", (on the wound strings), then a "German Loop" can be done by the string maker, which will make the string lie flat on the plate/hitch. Regards, Joe Garrett, RPT, (Oregon)
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