my old '75 P bass sounds brilliant with whatever. I love it with new strings, grindy and growly, then as they wear it still sounds the same but with less twang. Eventually I break one and change the whole set. My hofner cont 500/1 sounds fab with flats. Utterly perfect in fact.I haven't done enough gigs with my bravewood Sting replica to know what it sounds like with old strings, although it did get showered with rum and coke at a gig and it killed the strings and it wounded awful but I suspect that was the rum n coke.