Well I finally got around to putting a set of Artist Guitars 10-46 strings on my last strat build (
click for guitar - post #57).
I agree with Simon that their appearance is not as shiny as my usual D'Addario EXL-110's, but they do feel smooth.
However I have experienced two other less favourable things about them.
(FTR this is completely unscientific and may just be a matter of my own perception)
1) They don't seem as bright as a brand new set of D'A. They don't sound bad or dead, but I would compare them to a set of D'A that have been played (by me*) for a couple of weeks. *I have a very "string-friendly" body chemistry IYKWIM, so I don't kill strings very quickly.
2) I had the neck off the strat as a result of doing some other work, so when re-assembled it, I also re-did the set up and intonation.
The AG strings took
a lot of tweaking to get the intonation right. Particularly the wound strings.
They had been on the guitar for 24 hours and played prior to doing the intonation.
Also worth noting that I'm quite confident the intonation was spot on with the D'A strings and before I removed the neck.
I have removed and re-assembled necks with little to no effect on the intonation before.
So, at this point, I'm glad I only bought a 4-pack and not sure if the $3 savings per pack is worth it.
I will use up the other 3 sets, but maybe just as sacrificial sets when I need to do a job that requires multiple unstringing and restringing.
I may also do more of a proper A/B test just to make sure I wasn't imagining things...