To Pirastro... or not to Pirastro?

I've finally finished my run of operas last night and Billy (the harp doctor) has been round today and just finished servicing my harps and putting on some new bass wires.

​I've always used Pirastro wires, but the last few sets of Pirastro I've had on my harps I've been really unhappy with. It's been really disappointing as you use to be able to put on a set of Pirastro and know you were getting really good strings.

When I got my new Iris, it came strung with nylon top two octaves - YUK - I changed those to gut straight away. Plus it had Bow Brand standard nickel wires.

I did keep the nickel wires on the Iris for a while thinking that maybe they would get better, or it was the harp settling in, but in the end changed over to Pirastro wires. The Pirastros were a great improvement for a while, but less than a year on they sounded dead.

For the price a set of Pirastro cost, you would have thought you'd get at least 18 months to two years out of them!

So today Billy has put on new silver wires which he has re-designed with Bow Brand only a couple of months ago, (so not the usual silver wires, super new ones!!!).

I'll see how they settle in and sound in a few weeks....

....at £195 for a set of these new silvers, I don't mind if I only get a years use out of them.

After a lifetime of only ever using Pirastro wires, it will be interesting to see if these new Bow Brand silvers change my mind about using Pirastro.