<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en"> <html> Friends, I have also noticed the deadness Terry refers to.  I assumed it was a flaw in the replacement string, but now I hear several people say it's because the string may be more than eight months without tension. Since it's hard to do any bona fide research on such a question, here's another angle to consider.  Suppose a bass string tears and lies in the bottom of the piano for two years.  Finally a piano technician is called to tune the piano.  He splices the string and reinstalls it.  Can anyone relate to such a scenario?  And if so, did you ever notice deadness in *that* string, which would also have been without tension for some time and is decades old? Is it a factor that the hex core goes across the upper (in a vertical) termination point, whereas in a custom-made string the core is round?  But the deadness is a problem only *some* of the time. I try to keep a complete set of universal replacement strings on hand.  I certainly am not going to discard them all after 6-8 months and get new ones.  Should one use them only in an emergency with the full intent of replacing it with a custom string ASAP?  As Terry said, the situations where I use these strings are nearly always on pianos that are so worn-out or low quality that I have a problem justifying the cost of a custom replacement.  And yes, I am splicing more strings than I did in the past, although I still dislike the looks of it, and occasionally a splice won't hold. Regards, Clyde Hollinger, RPT Lititz, PA, USA Wimblees@AOL.COM wrote: <blockquote TYPE=CITE>In a message dated 12/23/01 2:56:27 PM !!!First Boot!!!, mfarrel2@tampabay.rr.com writes:     <blockquote TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">Now why in the world would a 6 - 8 month-old bass string in a box be useless, and a 20 year old bass string on a piano be expected to sound reasonably good? Terry Farrell  </blockquote> I think it is the lack of tension on the string. Perhaps more moisture and dirt gets in them sitting in the back of my van. I don't know all the answers. All I know is that universals more than 8 months old are usually dead, or at least not as good as a newer one. Wim</blockquote> </html>