You often hear players looking for that guitar which they describe as having buttery smooth bends, and this is a substantial factor in what makes a good guitar into the one that you fall in love with.

So, by this reckoning, the ease of string bending and other actions on the strings is a huge factor. This would be related to string tension in my opinion.

As strings have to be at a specific tension to be in tune, we cant make any changes there, but we can add softer/longer springs that allow easier string manipulation.

Is there any real hard evidence that different springs make a difference, or have any of you guys experimented and discovered some interestering results?

I have tried different springs, as well as 2-3-4-5- spring combination's, I always have my bridge on my strats pretty flush to the guitar face, never use a whammy bar, and string with 9 to 42's. I find string bends really easy with any combination of springs or tension, I think it is more of finger strength than anything. I would stay with stock Fender springs and use 3 if you seem to have difficulty.

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Dont think you understood my point. On any moderately well set up guitar, if you have any finger strength, you should have no difficult doing bends, but what i mean is the minute changes a softer spring would make to bending that changes a guitar from feeling really nice to feeling awesome, in the same way that fractions of a milimeter change in action can completely change the playability of a guitar.

Nah I dont agree with that. I have a American deluxe with the sloppy strength black springs and the bridge set to float, my custom classic is set flush and blocked. My claptonised MIM is set flush but not blocked and has 5 strong silver springs. My hotrod is set to float and has 3 vintage springs (more tension than black springs, less than modern silver springs).

I dont even notice the difference in bends. Theoreticaly there is a difference, its splitting hairs though.

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No no and no

Trem spring tension play an important role in the "feel" when bending strings.
Take Strat with floating bridge and 3 stock springs and watch the bridge rise as you bend a string. And we all know what happens when the bridge moves up; the strings go down in pitch, yes even the string(s) you are bending. So that means you have to slightly compensate and bend a little further than you would if the bridge was blocked.

Try it yourself on a Strat set up to float with 4 or less springs. Bend a string and watch the bridge come up. Now plug your Strat into a tuner and pluck the open low E and bend but not pluck the high E or B string up a full step or more. Now watch the tuner as your low E gets detuned down the higher you bend the other string. Actually you don't even need a tuner, it's quite obvious the low E goes down in pitch quite a ways. It's just proof bending strings moves the bridge and detunes the other strings on a floating bridge.

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Obligatory gear list: Fender, Rickenbacker, Gibson, Gretsch, Vox, Martin, and more Fender.

I think I hear what you're saying. There should be a difference between say a 3 spring setup and a 5 string decked setup in terms of ease of bending. Right?

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-Kirk

GUITARS
'12 Sonoran Acoustic - black (dated 10/31/12)
'13 Standard Strat
AMP
Vox ac4c1-bl
PEDALS
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Big Muff
Vox Stomplab 1G
Carbon Copy Delay