Pirastro's Perpetual Bass Strings - Do I want Stark, Medium, or some combination?

I just spent the time writing this up to post in a thread at Talkbass, so I figured I'd also share it here for our customers. A player posted that he had tried a full Pirastro Perpetual "Stark" set on his instructor's bass, and really liked them. So he's considering getting a set for his own bass, and he's wondering whether he should get the whole stark set, or a mixed set. What's the diff?

For what it's worth, the "Stark" Perpetuals are not just "added windings" onto the regular strings - they're manufactured entirely differently than the standard "Orchestral" Perpetuals. And, in my personal experience (my own bass has a full stark set on it as I type this) they are - unlike most "stark" strings - not significantly higher in tension than the orchestrals. So what's the deal with the Starks?

In the case of Thomastik's Spirocore strings, they are offered in three choices - Light, Medium and Heavy (called, respectively, Weich, Mittel, and Stark). For them, "Stark" means higher tension, thicker strings. Presumably, made the same way, but adding (or removing) some material/windings/etc. (Overly simplistic, but you get the point.)

The Perpetual's "Stark" designation, at least IMHO*, doesn't indicate higher tension, but rather "bolder sound." This is appropriate, actually, as the word "Stark" means "Strong," not "Heavy." They are also thicker in diameter (gauge) than the orchestrals; and yet, the tension and flexibility is still very friendly. And to make that happen required that they take several steps back and reconsider more than just winding count, as I'm told. The strings were basically re-engineered, almost from the ground up. Materials, winding processes... they looked at all the ways to do it, and went for it.

The reason the "stark" strings even exist is this: when the original Perpetual sets went out to a selection of production set testing, they received a significant amount of feedback that some players found the G-string too thin (small in diameter). Players liked its sound, but weren't crazy about the "skinny" feel under their hands. So the mad scientists at Pirastro tried some alternate materials/winding/black magic to try to recreate the G-string but with a thicker profile (without making it higher tension or stiffer.) What they came up with worked well, tone-wise and playability-wise, with the rest of the set - but it had a bit of a beefier sound. So rather than replacing the original G, which people still did like, they offered it as a new alternate "stark" version. A similar D-string made sense, so they engineered that too, and that's how they were sold for a while. A regular set with options to replace the D and G with a "stark" option.

The stark E and A strings came later - they just came out a few months ago.

Since they require more labor and materials to make, they do cost more than the standard orchestra variant, which likely adds to the confusion. Had I been in the room, my marketing-trained mind would have suggested to the Pirastro "powers that be" that they call them something different, since they feel and sound different from the Perpetual Orchestra they were based on - maybe "Perpetual Deluxe?" Goodness knows they've used that designation plenty throughout their catalog(!)

But, I think "Stark" has a well-known meaning, and these strings subvert that meaning a bit - again, IMO.

All that to say - the Perpetual Orchestra strings don't suck. They're great, and lots of our customers use them very happily. I think that - for me, personally - the stark G is a notable improvement, with a bolder timbre that I prefer. The D-string is also an improvement, but perhaps not as profound a difference as it is with the G-string.

The newer stark E and A strings replaced the standard orch E and A on my own personal instrument, and I can say there was a noticeable difference in them, too - before they came out, some folks had taken to putting the stark Perpetual G and D on top, and Spirocores on the bottom to get that beefier, punchier tone down low - I think the stark E and A provide that well enough for me to not have to bother mixing sets.

So, the TL;DR* to me is: If it's me, I definitely get the Stark G. If I have the scratch, I get the whole stark set, but if money's tight, the regular E-A-D strings are no slouches.

I hope that little ramble into the weeds was helpful in some way. It's all subjective, and YMMV*, yada yada yada.

* Online Nerd-speak key:
IMHO: In My Humble Opinion
TL;DR: Too Long; Didn't Read
YMMV: Your Mileage May Vary