[Ken Smith]

I was up at Arnolds places yesterday (AES) with my Shen to get a new Sound Post fitted. He got to try it with 3 reg flexs and the Stark flex E. He agreed and mentioned that in the future, he would order his Flexs in like that.

I mainly went up to retrieve my 5er that needed the neck re-set and neck block repaired. It is strung with flex G&D and Perm A,E&B. The reason is that I had 2&2 on my Martini because the E was too thin so I put the Perm and it balanced better with A&E matched.

Again here, if I had known about the Stark flexs which by the way are not listed anywhere, I would have just gotten the bigger/better matching E string. The Perms would never have gotten a second look at all.

So, if the E is too flabby, get the Stark. If you need the tone darker and don't mind a slight drop in presence of volume, get the Jaegars. They are balanced in feel and tone to my ear. At a distance however, there is little if any loss in volume. It's just a different type of sound. More spread and less direct penetration from what I can tell but neither is better than the other.