The guitar (Cort Earth) sounds fresher and a little more powerful. More clarity, more harmonics, too. These pins are somewhat wider than the former plastic units, so I had to enlarge the holes by 0.4mm approx. Easily done with a round diamond file.
They have some negligible variance in diameter that I mention only for the sake of completeness. About 0.15mm between the widest and narrowest. Doesn't matter in practice, they all held very well after enlarging the openings in the bridge.
They are also somewhat different in length. When looking across the row of pins, whose bases I carefully checked were perfectly flush with the bridge, some heads are a tad higher or lower. They can be sanded down to the same height for aesthetics.
Despite these cosmetic imperfections, I give five stars for quality for the tone improvement. The pins and/or the bridge holes will need some rectifying; that's part of the deal. Unlike another bridge/plastic pin combination on my Sigma, the pin heads don't prevent the hand from being placed precisely where needed to mute the strings.
And the top of the pins is left somewhat unpolished so they don't make squeaky noises against the skin. They lock firmly in the bridge after the width adjustment. They don't cost too much; for the price of a coated set of strings you can have a permanent improvement on your acoustic.
All the bone fibers are properly aligned with the axis of the pins, I checked with a magnifier. The tone improvment is so noticeable, it's kinda disconcerting at first. Almost like putting on new strings.
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