Hello there, and welcome back to yet another guitar string review article. It’s been a long time since I posted an article here! Hopefully, I will be able to publish more often, please stick around. My quest to experience different sets of guitar strings doesn’t seem to stop soon :).
Table of Contents
To keep testing, I have already purchased a bunch of guitar strings and have been trying them on different guitars. This time we will check out the Thomastik Infeld Power Brights RP 111 guitar strings.
TL;DR
Although I was not so happy with paying a premium price for a set of guitar strings, I must confess I really really love them! Thomastik Infeld Power Brights is not just a gimmicky model name that the company came up with! They are definitely unique and you will realise this while you play and feel the strings.
Even the attention to detail in the packaging is top-notch and along with its super unique sound and feel, these will help you justify the +15EUR price tag!
When I first saw the plain strings’ colour, I was pretty surprised and also confused for a while. I thought I bought a set of strings for some acoustic guitars or something! There’s nothing wrong with the gold-coloured plain strings.
Contrary to most consumers of these strings, I did not buy them for an archtop or hollow-body jazz guitar. In fact, I was already planning to use these in Drop C with the FGN Boundary Odyssey electric guitar. However, I was very satisfied with the overall tension, the sweet and natural sizzle and feel under my fingertips.
The only problem is that these strings are not coated and have a considerably shorter lifespan than a coated one. This was probably one of the first occasions that I was sad because I wanted them to last longer. Therefore I’m still not decisive about whether I should stock these, I may definitely go for these in the future as it has been one of the sweetest-sounding guitar strings ever!
cigilovic.com definitely approves Thomastik Infeld Power Brights RP111 and recommends any guitar player to try at least once regardless of their genre and guitar style!
I’d like to start with a quick introduction of Thomastik Infeld for those who have never heard of this long-established string brand.
About Thomastik Infeld
Thomastik Infeld is a long-established Austrian strings brand founded in 1919 in Vienna! It was founded by Dr. Franz Thomastik, who was a violin maker, and Otto Infeld, who was an engineer.
The company quickly gained recognition for its pioneering use of synthetic materials in string production. This marked a significant departure from the traditional gut strings, offering musicians enhanced durability, stability, and tonal consistency.
Over the decades, Thomastik Infeld has maintained its reputation for blending tradition with technological advancement, becoming a preferred choice among musicians worldwide. The company’s strings are celebrated for their precise craftsmanship and their ability to produce a rich, nuanced sound, making them popular among professionals and students alike. Best Tools For Guitars at Stewmac.com
Thomastik-Infeld is very well-known in string instrument players such as violin, cello and violas. During my service in the musical instrument industry, I had the honour and the chance to work with them and also personally met the company representatives in Frankfurt Musik Messe in 2017. They were so kind enough to gift me a set of flatwound guitar strings for my fretless Ibanez AR300.
The company has a lot to offer for string instruments and their product line is pretty broad. Their key product lines include Dominant, Spirocore, Vision, Peter Infeld, Belcanto and Infeld Red and Blue series.
Check out Thomastik-Infeld’s string instruments strings here
Luckily, they did not stop there and kept on projecting their expertise and innovation into guitar strings as well! Thomastik Infeld also offers a lot of guitar strings series mainly for classical and jazz guitarists.
In the early days of the internet, I had the information from a sound engineer that Erkan Oğur, a world-class fretless electric guitar player, would prefer Thomastik Infeld JS111 Jazz Swing flatwound strings. Since that day, this piece of information kind of settled in with me and I always thought about this mysterious guitar strings brand! 🙂 However, it was not really easy to try every Thomastik-Infeld guitar string out there back in the day.
Fortunately, this is not the case any more. With the existence of powerful online music stores like Thomann, you can just order any Thomastik-Infeld set in a couple of minutes!
Check out Thomastik-Infeld guitar strings line here
Thomastik-Infeld Power Brights RP111
Thomastik Infeld Power Brights RP111 is a set of electric guitar strings for 6-string guitars. It features the company’s round-wound Magnecore alloy on a flexible hexcore for a bright aggressive tone, extra long sustain and reduced playing effort.
This is designed to enhance harmonics and percussive effects like tapping. High output plus a boost in the high frequencies drive effects to the limits.
Power Brights series comes with a variety of gauges targeting different genres and styles of guitar playing. As mentioned, the wound strings feature their Magnecore alloy whereas the plain strings are coated with brass material which is supposed to prevent corrosion. Check out the best guitar pickup company, Seymour Duncan here!
The one I picked up was the RP111 which features an 11-53 (with plain G string) and has the following gauges in the set: 11 – 15 – 19 – 28 – 32 – 45 – 53.
Thomastik Infeld Power Brights Review
I was initially very sceptical about this set as it was a bit pricey for a set of guitar strings, however, as I always mentioned I don’t think I will ever be able to stop trying a new set of strings! So I went for it!
The packaging, and attention to detail with the individual envelopes of each string were top quality. I was pretty excited to try these and decided to pick up my FGN Boundary Odyssey electric guitar with a standard D tuning.
If you like watching my restringing and instrument care and maintenance sessions, I have one already for you featuring my FGN and Thomastik Infeld Power Brights here.
FGN Boundary Odyssey Restringing and Instrument Care
After I cleaned up my guitar and took good care of the fretboard, I went on and opened up the pack. However, I was really surprised when I saw the plain strings were gold-coloured. I was even confused for a while and checked the product descriptions. To be honest, I did not check the product description and the structure of the strings before I bought them. Ads - Check out these ads to support this web page
I restrung my guitar with Thomastik Infeld Power Brights RP111 and adjusted the neck and the string action as well as the intonation. Mentally, I was still not happy as I paid pretty much a premium price for a set of guitar strings, I must confess I really really love them!
Thomastik Infeld Power Brights is not just a fancy model name, but a name that accurately defines the product. These strings have a very unique feel and sound. I can maybe describe this as one of the sweetest-sounding guitar strings I have ever tried!
It has this nice sizzle and made me play for hours on the same day! As you may have read in the user reviews for this item, most of the consumers are buying Power Brights for archtop or hollow-body jazz guitars.
It was not the case for me. My goal was to try another set of strings in a D standard/Drop C tuning with my Marshall JVM4 10HJS and various boost pedals. While you are reading my review, I would also like to share my demo video of Thomastik Infeld Power Brights RP111 with you here.
Here in this video, I used my FGN Boundary Odyssey, Marshall JVM410HJS, Two Notes Torpedo Captor X, Boss SD-1 and Ibanez TS Mini as well as my RME Babyface PRO FS audio interface and Genelece 8020DPM monitors. I only used PSP SpringBox as my reverb plugin.
Thomastik Infeld Power Brights RP111 Sound Demo & Test (no talking)
How do you like the sounds? When I look at my playing, I see myself enjoying it a lot! Playing feel is amazing and it was very very easy to play! The only problem is that these strings are not coated and have a considerably shorter lifespan than a coated one.
However, I can’t entirely agree with user reviews online claiming that they lose their spark very quickly. I don’t think this is the case with these strings. If I actively play these strings every day on one of my guitars, I would keep them for a month without any issues.
This was probably one of the first occasions that I was sad because I wanted them to last longer. Therefore I’m still not decisive about whether I should stock these, I may definitely go for these in the future as it has been one of the sweetest-sounding guitar strings ever! Ads - Check out these ads to support this web page
I totally would like to recommend Thomastik Infeld Power Brights RP111 strings for any guitar player regardless of their genre and style. I’m sure you will be amazed by how sweet the sizzle it offers!
Where to Buy Thomastik Infeld Power Brights?
As I mentioned, I would first look up these on Thomann‘s website as they list the entire series there. Weirdly, Thomastik-Infeld official website doesn’t list the RP111 model anymore. I’m not sure why, they have other Power Brights but not the RP111.
Check out Thomastik Infeld Power Brights guitar strings line here in Thomann
You can also check out Reverb listings as many sellers are listing various Power Brights from Thomastik-Infeld.
Check out Thomastik Infeld Power Brights guitar strings line here in Reverb
Thanks for visiting my blog and supporting me so far! I will hopefully see you in the next review here!
Osman Cenan Çiğil – cigilovic.com
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