Originally Posted by ddawson2014

This isn't quite an accurate depiction of the string industry. My name is Don Dawson and I work for D'Addario. We have our own in-house engineering team, as well as our own milling and machinist division. We design and manufacturer our own machines, which are truly cutting edge from the standpoint of technology and design. Many of our competitors purchase machines that are available commercially and then rework them to their specifications but our machines are truly our own and unlike anything available in the general marketplace. This allows us to have greater quality control. We are also the largest string manufacturer so the need to have increase quality control capability is essential. We produce over 650,000 strings a day.

Additionally, Rotosound, Thomastik and a few other string makers are located in the UK and Europe - each with their own machinery and most importantly, their own core to wrap ratio, which gives the strings its feel and tension. So there are differences.

That being said, many string manufacturers do make strings for guitar makers as well as other string companies who choose to not identify that they "purchase" strings from another party.

Hope this helps

Don Dawson
Product marketing specialist
D'Addario / Planet Waves