>Would it sound better with heavier strings at lower tension? Not necessarily. >And is it practical to rescale just the bass? Yes. It's the easiest potential improvement you can make. There's not much you can do for the treble, except maybe changing a few plain trichords to wrapped bichords, without changing the bridge. >There seems a danger of making the treble break stick out even worse. That's entirely possible. Seeing the original scale helps determine how much of that treble break difference is scaling and how much is soundboard assembly. If the break already looks not too bad on paper, you probably won't improve it much with scaling. The final determinant of how much improvement you can get with scaling will be the soundboard. Before doing anything else, try clamping a small-to-medium size vise grip on a rear bridge pin in the low treble and see if the added mass makes any difference. If it does, hang a brass mass to the back side of the bridge down there. Experiment for optimum weight range. Too much isn't much better than too little. It can sometimes make a surprising difference. Ron N
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