The Best and Most Popular Electric Guitar Strings

This article is the complement to The Best and Most Popular Acoustic Guitar Strings compilation that I recently posted. Like that article, this too will be mainly a listing of the various types of electric guitar strings available at Amazon; that is, the best and most popular electric guitar strings you can find there.

Most of the packs you’ll see below contain 6 strings. There are a few that have 7 strings or 8 strings and are clearly noted as such.

There are really only five Amazon sales pages involved. You see many more than five sets of strings listed because, if you click around just a little on each sales page, you can get to all sorts of variations on the main listing.

With the exception of the Ernie Ball brand, the vast majority of sets of electric strings are 1-packs. However, for a few of the more common styles, you can get 3-packs or even 25-packs. (I guess those are for the pros who play a lot and are especially rough with their strings.)

Unlike the numbers shown in the acoustic listings, here we’ll go without the decimal points for the gauges. So, when you see a size of “9”, realize that that’s the same as a “.009” gauge string.

Ernie Ball Slinky Nickel Wound Electric Guitar Strings

All the Ernie Ball electric strings listed below come in 3-packs.

Click the link just below to see all the Ernie Ball electric guitar strings in the table that follows.

Stock #	3215	3220	3221	3222	3223
Weight	Slinky Top, Heavy Bottom	Power Slinky	Regular Slinky	Hybrid Slinky	Super Slinky
High E	10	11	10	9	9
B	13	14	13	11	11
G	17	18p	17	16	16
D	30	28	26	26	24
A	42	38	36	36	32
Low E	52	48	46	46	42

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D’Addario XL Nickel Wound Electric Guitar Strings

There are over a dozen options on this sales page. Choose wisely using the link below. I’ll spread the sets over three tables so things don’t get too crowded.

Note that these are designated as “nickel wound” as opposed to “nickel plated” (NYXL) which you’ll find further down in this article.

Stock #	EXL110W	EXL110-7	EXL115W	EXL120	EXL120+
Weight	Regular Light, Wound Third	Regular Light (7)	Medium, Wound Third	Super Light	Super Light Plus
Packs	1	1	1	1	1, 3
High E	10	10	11	9	9.5
B	13	13	14	11	11.5
G	18w	17	21w	16	16
D	26	26	28	24	24
A	36	36	38	32	34
Low E	46	46	49	42	44
7th str.	n/a	59	n/a	n/a	n/a

Stock #	EKXL120	EXL120BT	EXL120-7	EXL120-8	EXL125
Weight	Super Light, Soldered	Super Light, Balanced Tension	Super Light. (7)	Super Light (8)	Super Light Top. Regular Bottom
Packs	1	1	1	1	1, 3, 10
High E	9	9	9	9	9
B	11	12	11	11	11
G	16	15	16	16	16
D	24	22	24	24	26
A	32	30	32	32	36
Low E	42	40	42	42	46
7th str.	n/a	n/a	54	54	n/a
8th str.	n/a	n/a	n/a	65	n/a

Stock #	EXL130	EXL130+	EXL140-8	EXL150H
Weight	Extra Super Light	Extra Super Light Plus	Light Top, Heavy Bottom (8)	High Strung, Nashville Tuning
Packs	1	1	1	1
High E	8	8.5	10	10
B	10	10.5	13	14
G	15	15	17	9
D	21	22	30	12
A	30	32	42	18
Low E	38	39	54	26w
7th str.	n/a	n/a	64	n/a
8th str.	n/a	n/a	74	n/a

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D’Addario NYXL Nickel Plated Electric Guitar Strings

I don’t honestly know the difference between nickel wound and nickel plated, but that’s that main point of difference I see between these and the XL strings above.

Again, due to the high volume of variations – 20 of them – I’ll use several tables to contain them all. If looking to purchase by stock number, prefix each number below with “NYXL”. (I left that part off for space considerations.)

Stock #	0838	0940BT	0942	0946	09544	0980
Weight	Extra Super Light	Super Light, Bal. Tension	Super Light	Super Light Top, Regular Bottom	Super Light Plus	Super Light (8)
Packs	1	1	1, 3, 25	1, 3	1	1
High E	8	9	9	9	9.5	9
B	10	12	11	11	11.5	12
G	15	15	16	16	16	16
D	21	22	24	26	24	24
A	30	30	32	36	34	32
Low E	38	40	42	46	44	44
7th str.	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	60
8th str.	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	80

Stock #	1046	1046BT	1052	1059	1074
Weight	Regular Light	Regular Light, Balanced Tension	Light Top, Heavy Bottom	Regular Light (7)	Light Top, Heavy Bottom (8)
Packs	1, 3, 25	1	1, 3	1	1
High E	10	10	10	10	10
B	13	13.5	13	13	13
G	17	17	17	17	17
D	26	26	30	26	30
A	36	34	42	36	42
Low E	46	46	52	46	54
7th str.	n/a	n/a	n/a	59	64
8th str.	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	74

Stock #	1149	1150BT	1152	1156	1164
Weight	Medium	Medium, Balanced Tension	Medium Top, Heavy Bottom	Medium Top, Extra Heavy Bottom	Medium (7)
Packs	1, 3, 25	1	1, 3	1	1
High E	11	11	11	11	11
B	14	15	14	14	14
G	18	19	18	19	18
D	28	28	30	32	28
A	38	37	42	44	38
Low E	49	50	52	56	49
7th str.	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	64

Each of the following is only available (at Amazon) in a 1-pack.

NYXL1356W is called “Medium” at Amazon, but I think that is mislabeled. These strings are heavy, if not extra heavy.

Stock #	1252W	1254	1260	1356W
Weight	Light, Wound Third	Heavy	Extra Heavy	Medium, Wound Third
High E	12	12	12	13
B	16	16	16	17
G	24w	20	20	26w
D	32	32	36	36
A	42	42	46	46
Low E	52	54	60	56

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Elixir Nickel Plated Steel Electric Guitar Strings with NANOWEB Coating

Elixir has quite of few options as well, so we’ll go with three tables here.

All of the following are available as 1-packs.

Stock #	12002	12007	12027	12052
Weight	Super Light	Super Light (7)	Custom Light	Light
High E	9	9	9	10
B	11	11	11	13
G	16	16	16	17
D	24	24	26	26
A	32	32	36	36
Low E	42	42	46	46
7th str.	n/a	52	n/a	n/a

Stock #	12062	12074	12077
Weight	Light (8)	Light / Heavy (7)	Light / Heavy
High E	10	10	10
B	13	13	13
G	17	17	17
D	30	26	32
A	42	36	42
Low E	54	46	52
7th str.	64	59	n/a
8th str.	74	n/a	n/a

Stock #	12102	12106	12152	12302
Weight	Medium	Medium (7)	Heavy	Baritone
High E	11	11	12	12
B	14	14	16	16
G	18	18	24	22
D	28	28	32	38
A	39	38	42	52
Low E	49	49	52	68
7th str.	n/a	59	n/a	n/a

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Fender Original Bullets Electric Guitar Strings

These strings take a little explanation. I’ll simply quote Fender to help you understand what makes these so different and – according to Fender – worth paying for.

Bullet vs Ball Ends

An effect of the ball-end design is that when bending a string, the wire in that small slack area bends slightly, allowing the ball-end to seat itself more closely against the bridge. Then, when ‘diving’ the tremolo, tension on the bridge end of the string is briefly released, causing the slack area to attempt to spring back to its original un-bent position, only to ‘re-bend’ when bending the string again.

The problem is that when the string returns to tension, it might or might not be seated against the bridge exactly as it was before, which means there’s a pretty good chance that it will be slightly out of tune.

Another problem is that, on Stratocaster guitars, ball ends often get wedged in the tremolo block channels pretty tight, making them difficult to remove when changing strings.

The Bullet-End design is especially well suited to Stratocaster guitars because the bullet ends fit far more precisely into the tremolo block, closely fitting the circumference of the string channel, and they slipped out easily when changing strings.

Here’s what ball and bullet ends look like.

All the Fender electric string sets are 1-packs below.

Type	Light (3150L)	Light / Regular (3150LR)	Vintage Nickel, 10	Vintage Nickel, 11
High E	9	9	10	11
B	11	11	13	14
G	16	16	17	18
D	24	26	26	28
A	32	36	36	39
Low E	42	46	46	49

I had to make some assumptions about the gauges for the two Vintage Nickel sets. If the numbers aren’t correct, they’re at least close.

If you need more accessories for your instrument, look at these.