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I recently bought a second-hand H-575 (single HRW neck pickup), which arrived with a broken neck, making it impossible for me not to buy it, purely as I felt so sorry for this damaged but beautiful thing. It has turned out to be, of course, the best guitar in the world. I use 12-52 strings on semis (I've played a 175 for a long time), and traditionally use D'Addario ordinary strings. Long before the H-575 arrived in my life I'd bought a set of flatwound strings (also D'Addario, also 12-52) to try on the 175. Well, I tried them on the Heritage instead and I have a very love-hate relationship with them. The lack of squeaks and sheer smoothness of them is great (on this guitar, sometimes I want squeaks) and they've really helped me be more agile with my left hand, but they're kind of dull and 'plunky' – very traditional jazz tone I guess. Which is fine, but sometimes I want more top, especially on a guitar with no bridge pickup. Also they are really frighteningly expensive (this is why Jazz players are all impoverished I am sure). So now I'm wondering about half-round strings (which are really ground-wound I think), with the aim of getting a bit more brightness, but still not having the squeakiness and being really fast to play. Has anyone tried these (again, D'Addario 12-52s) and can compare them with flatwounds on a guitar like this, or anything similar? Or any other (affordable, so not expenso-titanium-with-unicorn-hair-core) recommendations would be welcome. I realise I can just try them and it's not that much money, but the guitar already ate all my money and I need to buy film as well (Kodak are seriously taking the piss with their prices). Thank you