I bought the strings for the sole purpose of trying to tune my guitar to C-standard on my 25,5" Ibanez, and still have decent tension, for metal playing purposes. For that, they failed. The plain strings were simply too flabby for that. The wound strings however had a nice tension and spank to them. I tried a few different things then. I tuned to drop C which worked great, but finally decided to try D-standard tuning, and this felt much more right. Better balance between the strings and the sound. Tight sound and very responsive. The tone is bright and top end-y, and they have what can be described as a very modern tone when used for metal, on a humbucker equipped guitar. I like them, but likely won't keep them on for long since I didn't achieve what i wanted initially. If you like the sound I described and aren't afraid of a workout for your fingers, these are nice strings.