<html> At 07:00 PM 8/4/2005 +0100, you wrote: <blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>My string maker, Gregor Heller, advises me to "get those bass strings on pdq. In manufactur they are under tension and increase their lenght by 8mm. Left un tensioned for any length of time results in poor tonal quality.</blockquote> Does anyone else corroborate this? In school, I put a set of bass strings on Ted Sambell's Pleyel grand. Ted had wound the strings a number of years earlier, preparing for the rebuild he hadn't had time to get into. They sounded just fine. Susan </html>