Some days ago I bought the 12 Martin Guitars MA-180S for the first time and I would do it again. Inspired by a good experience with Martin strings for my six-string Ovation guitar, I blindly chose the 12 set. Besides that I don’t use the guitar that often, so the old set was really more than “through”.

The packaging

Changing the strings of 12 string guitars is already a “torture” and especially tuning the strings can bring out then a certain aggressiveness, because it takes a while.
The stringing of these strings went quite well, but the strings are packed in an airtight “plastic” blister pack. For environmental reasons, Martin could possibly think about an alternative here. After opening this package you will find 6 paper bags with two strings each and I personally like this very much, because sometimes only one string breaks.

Handling of the Martin Guitars MA-180S

Tuning the guitar was a bit tedious and at the beginning the instrument was a bit out of tune. By pulling the strings several times, however, an absolute tuning stability was soon achieved. The best proof was a performance three days ago, before the guitar was overnight in the car and exposed to quite strong temperature fluctuations, but the tuning was only minimally not clean during the performance and was fixed easily by a short tuning.

Sound of the Martin Guitars MA-180S

The sound is brilliant and above all the sun rose, as the first time I had wound the new strings. My band colleagues spread a fat grin on their faces. The playability is very good because of the thin strings for acoustic guitars.

Specifications Martin Guitars MA-180S

• Characteristic: Extra Light
• Material: Bronze 92/8
• Strengths: 010/010, 014/014, 010/023, 012/030, 018/039, 027/047

Summary

Martin MA-180S are very good strings, which can be handled very easy. Most importantly the sound is good, as well as the playability. I can definitely recommend this product.

Plus

• Good price/performance ratio
• Brilliant sound
• Good playability

Minus

• Plastic packaging not environmentally friendly