I have to share this story, and this is a good semi-private place to do it. I was a lifelong GHS guy (Super Steels) until one day, I accidentally discovered Dean Markley SR2000 sets. Great tone and amazing lifespan. They are taper core, which is generally not my preference, but it's fine. The biggest problem I had was FINDING them. I used to have my local store order them, but practically every time, some kid that worked there would end up putting them out on the rack rather than calling me and letting me know they came in. So, I started ordering online. About a year ago, I got 2 sets from a vendor on Amazon. Starting putting them on and noticed the A was dead, and the D not much better. So I grabbed the other set - same thing! So I ordered 2 (or was it 4?) more sets from juststrings.com. MORE dead strings! The guy there put me in touch with a guy at DM, and I explained the situation to him. He said there were some issues they were working through and offered me some sets of Blue Steels to hold me over. Fine, cool. Even though it was over a month before I received the Blue Steels, and I had a lot of dollars wrapped up in strings at this point (I had to buy MORE strings to get me through gigs - back to GHS) I was happy with the customer service. Since they had sent me the Blue Steels, I figured we were done, and I'd eventually buy SR2000 sets again. Then a few weeks ago, out of the blue, I get a package from Dean Markley - 6 sets of SR2000 in newly designed packaging. Cool! Start installing a set - the A is dead as can be. Go to the next set. Same. ALL 6 sets have a dead A. WTF?!?!? I went and ordered 6 single Super Steel contact core A strings from juststrings.com so I could at least get some use out of these sets. It's really strange. It's as if they're coming unwound internally or something. One thing I've noticed on all of these is that they are wound unusually tightly in the package. The diameter of the wound up strings is almost half what it would normally be. Not sure if that has anything to do with it. I also noticed there's no silk on the tuner end of one of the D strings in the latest batch. What's going on over there at Dean Markley? Really disappointed. Anyone else having problems with them lately?