Obligatos are a pretty good string when new. Plenty of warmth and decent power, good under the bow, and pretty good under the fingers. The problem with them is when they get older. By older, I mean being on your bass from 6 months to a year.
I recently played a friend's plywood with some old Obligatos. The G and D string were still decent, but the E and A string were completely dead. I mean, they barely had any sound at all. Of course, this was all pizzicato. With arco, these old Obligatos were completely slippery under the bow on all strings.
Basically, be prepared o keep changing Obligatos if you get them: they have a short lifespan.
I currently play a Juzek with Helicore Orchestrals. They are a decent strings and have nice grip under the bow. But as Ken said, the sound is rather blah and uninteresting compared to Flexocors.
Yesterday, I was at Ideal Music in New York trying out the Roma, Eberle, and Wilfer carved basses. All of them but one had Helicore Orchestrals; one of the Wilfers had Helicore Hybrids. None of the basses were set up particularly well, but were all playable. The bow I was using had old hair that barely gripped the strings, but I got a sound out. Anyway, whether it is from the setup or not, the Helicores were pretty inconstent. I recall that one G-string sounded like an acoustic guitar string and was just nasally. If I were to get strings, I would skip Helicores and go for something else.
It's funny. Helicores seem to be the standard string for doublebass merchants who are selling basses with "upgraded" strings or the "good" strings to replace whatever placeholders they have on to start with.
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