too hard. Cost: quality sets are expensive, but that is mainly due to the market situation. Metal-nylon Pros Volume: louder and more suitable for concert and performance to a large number of people. Strength: stronger and breaks less than silk. Stability: retains tuning without further adjustments. Usage: easier to play and smooth to slide on. Cost: inexpensive in the long run. Cons Harmful: tends to wear the instrument down (especially the lacquer), meaning more repairs. Tone: tends to be too 'metallic' for some. Stringing: hard to string. High tension requires a lot of strength and effort on the player, though this is eliminated if you use the new tuning device. Re-usability: once a string breaks, it cannot be re-used, like silk. Also, metal core is prone to rust. Environmental: not bio-degradable. Etymological note on the word 'string' There are a number of Chinese characters for the word string(s). 『絃』, 『弦』, 『線』 and 『綫』. According to Chinese Characters (1915), 『線』 and 『綫/线』 are both the same character (the former used in Taiwan and Hong Kong, the later used in mainland China in its simplified form), which meaning is 'thread', 'line' or 'wire'. However, the characters 『絃』 and 『弦』 mean the same thing ('string'), but have different etymological meanings. In the case of 『絃』, the radical is 「糸」, which is the radical for silk, whilst for 『弦』, the radical is 「弓」 which is the radical for the archery 'bow'. It is important to distinguish from the two as they are often used to refer to the strings of the qin, or any other stringed instrument, sometimes together on the same page. However, etymologically, 『絃』 is the correct character to be used to refer to strings of the qin as the radical denotes, qin strings were made of silk (though probably etymologically incorrect for the modern metal-nylon strings). But for 『弦』, it probably denotes a string used on an instrument which requires a bow to play, such as erhu or violin. Maybe, 『弦』 can also be used to refer to metal / metal-nylon strings... References Please see: References section in the guqin article for a full list of references used in all qin related articles. Footnotes S