After going through all those string changes, you finally come to the conclusion that the best strings are, well, you don't know. It all depends on the conditions you stated, right?
My thoughts on this matter are that you really do have to find a good string setup if your current string setup is not making the grade for you. But at the same time, the quest to find the perfect string down to a T will not exactly help you that much.
For example, on my school's plywood Christopher, I ordered a set of Kolstein Varicores just to see how the strings were. I was interested in 70% arco/ 30% pizzicato, and I heard these strings were okay, but not great for pizzicato, and decent for arco. Actually, there wasn't much info at all on the strings, except that the G-string was nasally, but has been improved since.
The result? The strings were pretty good for arco and pizz, just as I expected. Not great, but just good. The G-string was very nasally sounding. I expected it to mellow out over the months. It never did.
I eventually jumped the gun and bought a used Flexocor set, minus the E-string. I replaced the Varicore G with the Flexocor G and voila, problem solved. The best G string I have ever heard and played.
The only other problems? I don't have a car, and haven't gotten this bass setup in years. So when playing the G-string from the A-flat to E-flat with the bow, the string buzzes. A lot. A proper setup will probably solve this problem. Also, this is a plywood bass, so its arco sound is not very good.
My school's other bass is a 1960's-ish carved Juzek. Its major problem before was that it had the oldest set of D'Addario Helicore Orchestrals on them. The sound with the bow was excrucating and screechy.
I replaced the strings last year with a new set of Helicore Orchestrals. The set, given only a bit used from another bassist, seemed to be a lighter guage set. When I first played it, I still found the sound somewhat scratchy compared to the Varicores (minus the G-string).
About a year later, guess which bass I'm playing? The Juzek. And the reasons?
Well, for one thing, I just couldn't stand the buzzes on the Christopher anymore.
But now I found the Helicores to be not just a tolerable string, but a pretty good all-around string. One reason is that they are on the carved Juzek, a major step up from the Christopher. But the other reasons are that I started using a better bow, and my arco technique has improved since a year ago.
So what's my point for this winding post? Basically, with enough practice and better equipment (bass and bow), the string choice becomes less relevant.
You definitely have to find a decent string setup to go along with a good bass and bow. But once you do, you should put less time towards finding that perfect string setup and more time towards practicing to improve your technique. At the end of the day, the time that you spend practicing will help you a lot more than the time that you spend looking for better strings.
Ken, you yourself said after looking and looking, you had no clue what were the best strings out there, just that you found a very good string setup for your basses
So does looking for the perfect string setup do any good? Definitely.
Because, if it were not for bassists' (not just us, all musicians) neurotic and obsessive tendency towards finding the best strings possible, the string manufacturers would settle for making 'good enough' strings. Instead, they give us a pretty large variety of choices for strings, and they also work on introducing new strings as well as improve old strings based on the feedback we give from our preferences and observations on what works and what doesn't.
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