Diamond BridgeBeadsfor Classical Guitar & Nylon String Guitar - Ivory StringTies

I have tried out many of the quirky guitar accessories to be had and found very few of them to be of any help, but I did my research on these and bought them to solve the pesky problem of a low string break angle on my favorite guitar. I own a Yamaha cg172sf flamenco guitar, and the bridge is extremely low on mine, which facilitates very little string break angle over the saddle. The end result is that the strings don't put enough downward pressure on the saddle, which in turn, results in less projection and volume out of the sound box. It's a very minute amount of extra angle that I was looking for, but in seems to have made all the difference since installing the diamond bridge beads. Keep in mind, that I was already very happy with the tone and projection of my guitar. I only ever make very small adjustments to any particular guitar. In my opinion, the beads are very discreet, and I like the way they look behind the tie block. They are very straight, neat and tidy once installed. They are extremely light and hover just a bit above the soundboard. While they are made of nylon, they have a very durable bone like quality and ping when tapped on with a finger nail. They are supper easy to tie! This is coming from someone who has learned everything about tying nylon guitar strings. I have tried just about every method out there, and I know how to put them on right. It looks like it's impossible for the strings to ever slip the way these beads are engineered, and after putting on a brand new set of strings my guitars' intonation is spot on, though this particular guitar was pretty close to perfect from the beginning. I don't think these beads will help correct a poorly intonated guitar. Because the guitar strings now have the correct break angel over the saddle, it feels as if the action is a hair higher than it use to be. This is a totally negligible side effect. I even prefer it, maybe. It could all just be in my head. Now for the very subjective part of this review; do these bridge beads have any effect on the tone of my guitar. As I said before, my guitar is about as close to perfect for me as I have ever gotten, so any effect on its tone is going to be negligible, however I cannot help but feel like the trebles and basses are much more clear and focused now. There is also a slight increase in volume, not much, but enough to take notice. My rudimentary understanding of physics and guitar engineering, leads me to believe that the increased break angle over the saddle is doing it's job by putting a little extra downward pressure on the saddle, which is exactly why I bought these beads. My secondary reason, was to alleviate some of the wear and tear on the tie block, which these beads have done, as the strings no longer wrapped around the tie block. This was the cheapest solution for fixing my problem, short of drilling out six more holes in the tie block (risky for a non Luther) or paying big money to completely replace the existing bridge. While I do think that the current price for these diamond bridge beads is a little exorbitant, so far it seems justified, though I wish they would make these in a cream color as well. Aesthetics, however, are always secondary to tone for me. I don't care how bad my guitar looks, if it plays and sounds fantastic. Neither does Willie Nelson!

These beads make replacing the strings a joy and nearly hassle free. In addition to playing standard classical guitar I also play a nylon string baritone that uses a .066 Savarez 'A' string for the 6th string. The string is way too big to get through the standard sized holes. That's on me-not Diamond Bridge Beads-but when I contacted them they were kind enough to customize two and send them out to me. Wow. Thanks Kent.Cheers, kb

These beads works just fine.

Very satisfied. Looks great.

Much easier than tying around the bridge, and they tightened up right away and stayed in tune.