I’ve bought a few types of HANNABACH strings, so I’ll be featuring HANNABACH for a while. The first one is HANNABACH’s most reasonable string, “500 STUDENT CLASSIC GUITAR STRINGS” Medium Tension. I’m looking forward to seeing whether it’s “cheap and nasty”, or whether it maintains the quality of HANNABACH. I would like to review it.
The following article summarizes the string reviews/impressions/information articles on this blog
- Strings developed for students learning classical guitar
- An ingenious way to identify strings
- The bass is rather mild tone, but it has a thick sound that is typical of HANNABACH
- High-pitched tone that allows you to hear an inner voice
- “500 STUDENT CLASSIC GUITAR STRINGS” is a good string: inexpensive but have inherited the DNA of HANNABACH
Strings developed for students learning classical guitar
This HANNABACH 500 series is named “STUDENT CLASSIC GUITAR STRINGS”. This string has been developed so that students learning classical guitar can change the strings without worrying about the cost.
For this reason, keeping the price down would be considered as a top priority. In addition to devising materials and packaging, HANNABACH also keeps costs down by not selling individual strings.
The package is very simple, like this. It looks like a snack with a zipper.
The characteristics of the package and the string are written on the back.
The package has a zipper and is resealable. Typical classical guitar strings are wrapped in plastic. Then they are also packaged in paper. But I personally think it’s OK to use the simple package instead, if it’s cheaper.
An ingenious way to identify strings
What’s interesting is that the identification of the strings has been devised.
The bass strings look like this. The 4th string has one loose winding, the 5th string has two loose windings, and the 6th string has three loose windings. You can identify the strings by the number of loose windings, even if all the strings are in one package.
The treble strings, on the other hand, have a black mark only on the 2nd string. Since the 1st and 3rd strings can be distinguished by their thickness, it seems to be sufficient to distinguish only the 2nd string.
The bass is rather mild tone, but it has a thick sound that is typical of HANNABACH
Now, here are my impressions when I actually put “500 STUDENT CLASSIC GUITAR STRINGS” on.
The bass strings do not have a glimmer or sparkling sound. They have a thick sound. It’s a sound that you’ll never get tired of playing and listening to.
Although “500 STUDENT CLASSIC GUITAR STRINGS” is an inexpensive string, it can be said that it has inherited the typical HANNABACH sound.
Other HANNABACH strings are coated, but this HANNABACH 500 series is uncoated. Therefore, it may not be suitable for long-term use without frequent playing.
High-pitched tone that allows you to hear an inner voice
The treble strings are transparent and their sound is not too flashy.
You can say these are also typical HANNABACH sound. And because the sound is not flashy, you can hear an inner voice clearly when you play chords.
I have just put “500 STUDENT CLASSIC GUITAR STRINGS” on, so the sound of the treble strings may change in the future. I will add a note if it changes.
“500 STUDENT CLASSIC GUITAR STRINGS” is a good string: inexpensive but have inherited the DNA of HANNABACH
The standard HANNABACH strings, “815 Silver Special”, are priced at 2,700 yen in Japan. In contrast, the 500 series is almost a 1/3 of that, with a list price of 1,000 yen.
Despite that, it is wonderful that the 500 series has the typical HANNABACH sound. However, when comparing the sounds, 815 Silver Special sounds better.
I think that you could “use this 500 series for practice and use more expensive strings like 815 Silver Special for the actual performance”, as the sales pitch goes.
Another concern is its durability. I would like to add a report later.
Postscript: Its durability wasn’t great. I felt the deterioration after about a week, and had to change the strings within two weeks… Well, since the price is inexpensive, you could say that the durability is reasonable.
