Pirastro Passione Cello Strings, SET

Pros: Ongoing sound problems with my late 18th/early 19th century English cello, required a luthier's attention. Together we decded to put metal covered gut strings on, as the nearest and best available, which the cello was originally built to play on. My luthier suspected that a gut core string would 'free up' the cello's sound. He was right. These expensive strings offer a rich, warm tone with extra overtones and really bring out the complexity of this superior cello's sound. Moreover, I've gained power not lost it. Dark and rich, these strings respond surprisingly well under the bow and it doesn't take long to adjust to the thickness of the strings , especially the C string. The stability of tuning is not too bad either, despite dire warnings about this, I have found Passiones pretty OK in this. I will be keeping these strings on this cello for quite a while, as I have been pleasantly surprised by them.

Cons: Tuning stability is not as good as an all metal string, but is suprisingly stable, but you do have to keep listening and giving the odd tweak on the adjuster now and again, especially if you are a strong, powerful player. Rather expensive, but could be worth it if your cello is 'strangled' by modern strings, or you are looking for extra richness and beauty of tone.

Other: Stingzone had these strings to me very quickly and were very efficient.

Pros: Very nice clarity and fast response times, even on the bottom strings. Very even across the set. Until trying these, I'd used exclusively Jargar and then Larsen strings for the past 40+ years (started learning using gut strings in the 1960s before switching to Jargar by around 1968, so was well used to gut in an earlier lifetime). Decided to try gut again after borrowing a cello for an overseas gig which had been setup with gut, and seeing how much it 'encouraged' me to be rather more sensitive with the bow(!) which I took as a sign that it might be worth it for my playing to switch back for a while. I've had them on now for about 2 months, and am extremely happy with them -- the richness of the bottom two coupled with their speed of speaking has been super, and the evenness going over to the non-gut A and D of the set has also been jolly nice. Good clarity and richness high on the A and D, and nicely predictable tuning across the length. (Cello is an 'ordinary' 1970s Mittenwald.)

Cons: Essentially none -- took a few weeks for the G and C to stretch, but that's to be expected for gut strings, also quite susceptible to local environment (had one orchestral rehearsal seated near a room heating/cooling fan which couldn't be controlled -- led to some pretty chaotic retunings during rehearsal!

Pros: I bought a set to complement the Passione A & D I'd bought earlier to replace the Eudoxa A & D. The ball end is a better fit for the tailpiece with fine tuners. The A & D have been much more stable in pitch and give a good rounded tone. I was hoping for a bit more pitch stability with the G & C but there is still quite a bit of variation with temperature etc. and always need a bit of retuning after playing for a few minutes, Tone-wise, quite similar to the Eudoxa though probably just a tad brighter and a little easier high up on the G.

Cons: The 2 lower strings in gut are still nowhere near as stable as a steel string, and of course as the upper 2 are steel then it means it's just the lower 2 that drift off pitch after playing for a bit rather than the whole lot remaining in tune with each other (even if not with anyone else!).

Other: The other issue with gut strings is the durability, but as that was always more of a problem with the upper strings anyway, I'll wait and see. Still did need a good couple of weeks of playing in before sounding their best.

Pros: Superb sound throughout!

Cons: None