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Just wondered if anyone had an opinion on whether High Tension strings are detrimental to a Classical guitar. Are they more likely to cause neck /top distortion or is the  tension difference insignificant?

I used to use high tension strings on all my guitars(own not built).  I even tried extra high tension.  I never noticed any difference in action that I could feel or see, albeit, I could feel the difference in the strings and hear the differences.  I have since switched to medium tension strings, and have found them to give much broader response capability than I could get from high tension strings.  I was really surprised when I switched.  I get longer sustain in my trebles, and don't loose any appreciable bass or mid range.  And, most interestingly, I seem to be able to relax a little more while I play, and don't have to play as hard to get dynamics variations.  I have grown to like them, and probably will not go back.  However, there might be some guitars that need the additional drive that a high tension string would give.

_________________
Waddy

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Sound Clips of most of my guitars

You can find the tension numbers for some strings on the net.
For example- LaBella Classicals vary from 77lb (Light Tension) to 80lb (Medium) to 85lb (high Tension) to 95lb (Xhigh).

So a change from Med to High tension strings is not a very great increase in stress on the neck.
I think that it's more a case of 'feel' to the player, and tonal response, as Waddy has pointed out.

You should also remember that the tension numbers refer to a particular scale length (usually 650mm?) and will vary with other scale lengths. For instance, with a shorter scale length guitar you might want to use a harder tension string to give fewer buzzes and a better feel.
There's a good (brief) discussion of this at the stringsbymail website, BTW.

Cheers
John

I use high tension strings on my flamenco guitars. In a Flamenco because you are trying to get the string height as low as possible without excessive buzzing. The extra tension helps to keep the string tight so there is less buzz when playing hard.

While a high tension string can produce more volume, the tradeoff is as was mentioned a loss of a broader range of dynamics and expression.