Best Acoustic Guitar Strings

Strings are absolutely critical to your overall sound when it comes to acoustic guitars, and play just as important a role as your playing style or your guitar’s bracing pattern or tonewood. But with so many types available, choosing the best acoustic guitar strings for you doesn't always seem so easy.

Rest easy though, as our experts have been test-driving set after set of acoustic guitar strings to ensure you quickly know which ones will help your guitar sound the way you want it to. We've also looked at strings across a variety of price points, covering off budget options and more luxurious strings for your instrument, whether you're rocking a cheap acoustic guitar or a top-level strummer.

When it comes to selecting the best acoustic guitar strings for you, there are so many decisions to make on material, gauge, and price. Coated guitar strings have made huge advances in terms of tone and feel, and are an increasingly popular choice among acoustic players looking to extend the life of their strings. 

They invariably enhance higher frequencies, too, but all of this goodness comes at a price – quite literally, as coated strings are typically more expensive.

Many of the string sets featured in this acoustic guitar strings buyer’s guide are coated, but we've included some alternatives, and some more traditional string options too.

The best acoustic guitar strings: buying advice

Gauges
All of the sets featured in our best acoustic guitar strings round-up come in a variety of gauges. The string gauge - the thickness or diameter of the string - has an impact on your tone and technique, and on your guitar.

Thicker strings will sound fuller, with a more rounded low end, and on balance they tend to be louder. They’re more durable, too. Fewer string breaks? That’s great. But there are drawbacks. For players who are still building strength in their fretting hands, thick gauges can make for a chastening playing experience, especially if you are a finger-picker or like to play fast runs and bend your strings. If you are a folky strummer, heavier might be a better option.

Lighter gauge strings are easier to get a handle on, to fret and bend, and they sound a lot brighter. The trade-off is that you lose some of that bottom end. For some players that is worth it. But not all.

Take a look at your guitar, too. For smaller bodied acoustic guitars, lighter gauge strings might complement the sound better, and vice-versa, with thicker strings a better fit sound-wise for larger bodied jumbo and concert models. 

Guitar strings are measured in 1/000th of an inch, and packaged in sets that are typically referred to by their thinnest string, the high E. So a “set of 12s” will have a high E string that has a 12 gauge, measuring 0.012-inches across its diameter.

Here's a generic guide to acoustic guitar string gauges:
Extra light: .010 .014 .023 .030 .039 .047
Custom light: .011 .015 .023 .032 .042 .052
Light: .012 .016 .025 .032 .042 .054
Medium: .013 .017 .026 .035 .045 .056
Heavy: .014 .018 .027 .039 .049 .059

Materials
Acoustic guitar strings are commonly made of bronze, phosphor bronze, brass, nickel, silk and steel.

Each material has its own timbre. Bronze sounds bright, with bell-like clarity and a wide treble-forward frequency response. As the name suggests, phosphor bronze sees phosphor added to the alloy to slow oxidation and extend string life. Phosphor bronze strings tend to sound a little darker and warmer than bronze. 

Brass strings have plenty of top-end jangle, nickel strings have warmer tone, make an excellent vintage choice, as does monel – a nickel-based alloy that many guitarists swear by for getting the best out of their tonewood.

What about nylon strings?
If you’ve got a classical guitar, you’ll need nylon strings. In a set of classical strings, the top three strings are made from clear or rectified nylon, with the bottom three typically using bronze or silverplayed copper wire wrapped around a multi-filament core. 

Classical guitar strings are referred to as having high or low tension, with high tension strings offering a heavier feel and low tension a more easy to play feel. 

The good news? Strings are not expensive
Our biggest piece of advice would be to pick up a few options and get restringing and experimenting! What feels light to one player may pose a struggle to others. But guitar strings are cheap enough that you can try a few sets without breaking the bank. The more you experiment, the sooner you find a set that gives you the tone and feel you want.

The best acoustic guitar strings to buy now

Martin offers a wide range of acoustic guitar strings, and these Lifespans are its treated option of the SP 'Superior Performance' line. They have ultra-pure steel SP core wire and are available in 80/20 and phosphor bronze sets, while 12-string and acoustic baritone players are also catered for. This is simply a great-sounding acoustic guitar string that's durable and fit for all styles of playing.

Elixir is the first name in coated guitar strings, and this coated phosphor bronze light/medium hybrid (0.013-0.053) set has been treated with Nanoweb, which not only keeps the strings fresh longer, and protects the entire string, but reduces finger squeak. It's designed to provide a warmer bottom-end and bolder top-end with some mid projection boost in between.

String up with these and steel yourself for a booming performance that sees a fat low-end pair well with detailed mids and enough top-end shimmer to really make your chord playing ring out. 

But these aren't just for strummers... The Aluminum Bronze set has a nice natural playability, with the copper and aluminium wrappings over Maraging steel hex core promising long life without coating.

The ‘cryogenic processing’ with liquid nitrogen that Dean Markley use for the Blue Steel range may sound a little like something from a sci-fi movie, but by freezing strings to -320 degrees Fahrenheit and then gradually bringing the temperature up, greater frequency response and tuning stability is claimed.

We highly recommend sampling a range of coated strings from various brands in order to narrow down your preferences. The New York company’s EXP range should be on your list. D’Addario claims that its coating offers more of the natural feel you get with uncoated strings, while still having the life-extending benefits of the coated types.

The 80/20 bronze Earthwood range offers this Extra Soft Silk And Steel iteration, which adds a layer of silk between the wrap and steel core to make playing easier on your fingers. It promises a mellower sound with reduced finger noise that could prove useful for recording sessions.

A back-to-the-future move from Martin saw these strings launched back in 2014; think of these as a vintage string. Returning to the old nickel-based alloy blend of monel results in a softer touch and warm tone, to bring out the inherent tone in your acoustic’s wood. There’s also a claimed longer life than some other phosphor or 80/20 options.

Available in light, normal and high tensions, these classical strings from D’Addario are manufactured in the USA and have a wonderful punchy and bright tone. They might be classical by name, classical by nature, but the custom-extruded treble strings are produced by a state-of-the-art, computer-controlled laser.

This must be a great acoustic guitar string to use once you’ve dropped three grand on a Hummingbird and find yourself paying for a top-quality string with the loose change in your pocket. Designed under the watchful eye of Gibson’s acoustic guitar builders, these phosphor bronze strings balance a sharp brightness that rounds out as it sustains.

La Bella coats its strings in a different way to others; changing the actual surface of the string during the Ionic Vapor Process where “propriety compounds are activated in a glow discharge electromagnetic plasma to modify the surface”. The result is a string the company says lasts five times longer than non-treated strings and sound brighter than the coated competition. They are not cheap but many players swear by their dynamics.