adorshki,
For now I might just drop the tuning by one step and see if that makes it easier to use these strings. If not, I'll swap out the 12's for something lighter.
RBSinTo
WesterlyWood recently commented that for some reason 80/20's felt "softer" than pb, which we figured makes sense as they'd have a higher percentage of copper, a "softer" metal.
Another "gotcha": Neck profile (thickness/shape) For the first couple of years after I got my D40 I couldn't figure out why it always felt like i had "stiffer" action than my D25, both had 1-11/16 nuts and they were both strung with EJ-16's..thought to myself: "Must be the "Fender setup", since it reminded me of my early '80's MIK Fender F210 which proudly proclaimed "Set up in the USA" on the box.
But a check of action heights showed it was set up precisely to the specs Guild published at the time at 5-6/64 on low E an 4-5/64 on high.
Then one night while just eyeballing it, I noticed a very slight "bulge" in the neck beginning at just above the 5th fret, so subtle as to be
almost unnoticable, but it made me look more closely. Realized the whole neck was thicker (deeper and rounder more like a "U") than my 2 Westerlys which had what Fender called "modern Flat oval" at the time.
With my love of ergonomics I deduced that shape must be making my fingers work a little differently than I was accustomed to, which I perceived as "stiffer" action.
Hard to believe such a small thing would make that much difference, but just like nut widths, it does. In fact it's also been observed by some folks over the years that while they prefer a 1-11/16 nut, they didn't mind 1-5/8 nut as long as it was on a thicker neck profile. To me that corroborated the importance of neck profile as one element of overall "feel".
And in the last 4 or 5 years I've come across situations where the '40 actually works/
feels better for some stuff on higher frets than the D25, and it doesn't feel "stiffer" anymore, which might be due to my aging hands preferring a thicker neck now. I've heard that here before, too.