Hello there and welcome back to yet another guitar string review article here! This time we will look at one of my latest discoveries in the guitar strings domain, Henry’s Strings.
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Unfortunately, there’s not much information about the company and it’s mostly known and aimed towards the central European market, so I am going to have to keep this article pretty brief for you.
Henry’s Strings
For those who have never heard of Henry’s Strings, here’s a quick introduction:
Henry’s Strings is a strings brand founded in 2021, possibly based in Czechia. They offer a wide variety of strings for electric, acoustic, classical, bass and ukulele.
Their motto is “by guitarists for guitarists!” which is cool! 🙂
As you may know, I have been living in Bratislava for some time and trying to understand the MI market here.
Before I arrived in Bratislava, I already checked the music stores and found out that the Muziker company was the top one for MI stuff. I even had a job interview there back in the day but couldn’t agree on terms. 🙂
When I checked out Muziker and other alternative stores here, I found out that the product and brand line were pretty similar to the ones in Turkey.
I used to work in the MI industry and dealt with dozens of internationally manufactured MI brands. Best Tools For Guitars at Stewmac.com
Having been exposed to the MI market helped me understand how these brands pop out of nowhere and basically how these operate in logistics, marketing and sales.
The reason I’m telling you this is that I believe Henry’s brand is also a similar company that I’m familiar with. Creating a brand and getting products manufactured in some factories in China. By the way, this is done by everyone in the industry, just think about Thomann and their exclusive brands such as Harley Benton, sounds familiar right?
I was even responsible for importing some Chinese-made guitar strings from smaller factories. These were aimed at dealers who would serve people with very low budgets and I knew the quality would be pretty low.
As I was making my decision to try these Henry’s Strings, I had these arguments formed in my mind already.
Because there was almost no information available about the company! I thought let’s try and experience this brand once and for all! 🙂
Since I live in Slovakia, I usually do my online shopping from Alza.sk as they have almost anything in stock. Recently, they also started adding products from the musical instruments and accessories segment which is awesome for me!
Check out Henry’s Strings at Alza.sk
I was planning to upgrade the tailpiece on my beloved Ibanez AR300 with a Gotoh one and to shoot some comparison videos to document whether tailpieces affect the tone. While doing these back-and-forth experiments, I noticed that the Elixir 10-46 set on the guitar started getting really damaged! 🙂
Check out my Gotoh GE101A Stop Tailpiece review here
So I thought I could get a set of Henry’s Strings and restring my guitar for a chunky standard D/drop C setting. Check out the best guitar pickup company, Seymour Duncan here!
Henry’s Strings Electric Nickel 11-52 Medium (HEN1152)
After I received my package, I was pretty impressed with the effort that they put into marketing. The packaging was pretty solid and signalling a decent quality!
Two High E Strings Included
I immediately noticed that they even provided two high E strings! During my almost 25 years of noodling with guitars, I have rarely broken strings but recently this started happening a lot as I keep changing gauges and guitars while trying to play songs and solos. This sometimes causes me not to adjust quickly enough to the different feelings of each guitar and gauge has to offer.
So this double high E was pretty impressive as I thought I could use these strings feeling a bit safer for the future! 🙂
Then I also realised that they put these labels on each string instead of colour codes, telling you the exact strings out of the package. Again, a cool detail!
So far so good? I was pretty excited and finalised the restringing of my Ibanez AR300. After a quick tuning, truss rod and intonation adjustment, I started playing and believe me I really really enjoyed the first day with my Henry’s Strings!
This was the first time (after a very very long time) that I attempted to use 12-52 gauge on standard D and drop C tunings. Even though this is the advised gauge for this tuning by many guitar players, I find it pretty limiting in terms of being able to play both rhythm and lead on the same guitar.
When I go for 11-49s, it even allows me to play in standard tuning without having to adjust too much on the same guitar. I find this very convenient! But 12-52 is definitely another beast and it makes you play more on the rhythm side! Ads - Check out these ads to support this web page
Also, note that the G string is a wound string and it may feel pretty weird if you are not used to this!
Henry’s Strings Electric 11-52 Medium (HEN1152) Test
On the same evening, I decided to just play random stuff on my Ibanez AR300 and record it. So for the demo below, I used my Ibanez AR300, Marshall JVM401H, and RedSeven Amp Central reactive load (with Celestion V30 57+121 mic).
I was mostly on the OD1 Orange mode and used MXR Microamp as a volume booster to squeeze things a little bit. Apart from that, I added Eventide SP2016 reverb for some ambience (very little!).
Henry’s Strings Nickel 11-52 Standard D/Drop C Test
As you can see from the video, I just played anything that came into my hands and did not plan so much. I ended up with a video around 45 minutes long and just roughly removed the bits I did not like. This was a great sign as I just forgot about how long and what I played! 🙂
On top of that, these thicker bottom strings had a positive impact on my playing as my guitar was now reacting to my rhythm playing. With these joyful moments in mind, I also checked the packaging to get some information about the company and was already planning to write this article to feature them on my blog.
What I noticed was that they even put a leaflet inside with some Instagram tags and instructions to take a photo with your Henry’s Strings and guitars and tag them on social media so they can share!
I took some photos as you can see in the article and grabbed my phone and voila! There was nothing about Henry’s Strings on social media and their website was down!
Not a good sign for sure, I tried to contact them via email using Web Archive and spotting their email address and got a response from Music-City.cz saying that my email was forwarded to the person who is responsible for Henry’s Strings. I haven’t received any response as of yet, so I decided to just publish the article! 🙂
Henry’s Strings Review – Is it worth it?
The short answer is, unfortunately, no! With this great initial experience and inspiration, I picked up my guitar the next day and immediately noticed a drastic change in the tension of the strings.
The strings almost felt like they got wet, damp and heavier! Upon closer inspection, I noticed colour changes on the strings and these were very severe!
As you can see from the image below, it all corroded and this was just after 1 hour of playing!
As you may know, I have been trying to test whatever I can get my hands on concerning guitar strings and share it with you so you have an idea of what to expect. I’m sure Henry’s Strings would be only preferred by guitar player friends in central Europe mostly and I’m not sure if they ever visit my blog. I wanted to keep it transparent with all my visitors here.
Unfortunately, such an experience is something I have never ever seen before with any guitar strings. I have some solid experience with guitar strings for over two decades and usually measure how fast a guitar string gets corroded very easily but just playing! 🙂 Ads - Check out these ads to support this web page
Not sure why but I supposed my pH or any chemicals on my skin corrode or at least start the reaction with plain strings almost in an hour or so.
For instance, standard D’Addario strings get corroded just like that, but I have never been able to impact wound strings and have never seen this kind of colour change with any guitar strings.
So a big no from me, sorry Henry’s Strings. I don’t think anyone should be paying for these strings!
In case you don’t believe me and try it for yourself, please check out their Amazon store or Alza.sk.
After I got disappointed with Henry’s Strings, I restrung my Ibanez AR300 with my all-time favourite Elixir strings, this time using Nanowed 12-52! Please check out my Elixir Strings review article and have a listen to my test videos over there!
I hope you have enjoyed this review article and the multimedia materials I produced for you. Thanks for visiting my blog and supporting me so far! I will hopefully see you in the next review here!
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