About the Elixir strings...yes, they are a bit pricier than others, no question...but they last 3 to 5 times longer than the others. You know the old saying..."You get what you pay for!".

Since I've never owned an SG, I can't really speak about it too much except to say that I know it is a very fine instrument...I certainly have played a number of SG's that belonged to friends of mine. I have re-strung and intonated about 3 zillion guitars in my years of playing. :) OK, maybe only 2 zillion! :D But I have never seen a guitar that would not intonate properly with any standard set of guitar strings tuned to standard pitch.

The people who make guitars, i.e., the guitar manufacturing industry can't afford to make instruments that are weird and difficult to intonate. I would say that they go out of their way to make sure that that doesn't happen. All of this to say that any commercially manufactured guitar should be able to be intonated properly with any commercially manufactured standard set of guitar strings especially a quality instrument like an SG or a Strat.

Even going further, for many years I used what most players would consider a very unorthodox set of strings, (custom guaged selected from the individual strings box) and I could intonate my guitars properly with these custom guages.

A couple of thoughts occur to me about intonation problems.

Check the neck to make sure it is adjusted properly...just a slight bit of bow about half-way between the nut and bridge. If you know how to adjust the truss rod and it needs it, then go ahead. If you don't know how to adjust the truss rod, then take it to someone who does. If you put too much torque on the truss rod adjustment with a wrench (spanner) you can strip out the threads and ruin your guitar. Don't get too nasty with putting pressure on the truss rod. If you have to get real mean with it, there is something wrong with it. Take it to a guitar shop.

Now a couple of thought about the bridge. One thing...if the bridge has a Floyd Rose tremolo...all bets are off. I'm not a fan of them at all, I don't really see the usefulness of them and they are super-difficult to make work properly...if at all.

As far as the Strat is concerned, I own one as well. I really like everything about the guitar except for the tremolo. I bought the Strat with the complete intention of disabling the tremolo function right from the outset. By the way, notice that Eric Clapton doesn't have a tremolo arm on his Strat!

Let me say a couple of things about that. In my opinion (I know it might not be very popular) the Fender tremolo system is junk. The only tremolo system I've ever seen work properly is a Bigsby but they don't come on every guitar and they are pricey. They are pricey because to make a tremolo system work on a guitar it requires precision machining and a lot more thought and expense having been put into it than the cheesy Fender spring system. On my Fender, I blocked the tremolo system off...that is...I took the plastic plate off of the back of the guitar and put a small block of wood between the bridge and the body of the guitar. This is so that the strings will pull against the bridge and wedge the block of wood tightly against the body cavity and keep it in place properly. I guess it goes without saying that when you change your strings, if you take all of your strings off at the same time, there would be no tension on the bridge against the block of wood and so it could move around and get out of place. With the plastic plate back in place, no one else will know you have put a block of wood inside the body cavity unless you tell them or they ask you where your tremolo arm is.

Goodbye Fender tremolo and goodbye to tuning problems.

In my opinion, whatever benefit one might possibly get from having a Fender Strat with a (functioning?) tremolo in place is greatly offset by the even greater benefit of having a guitar that stays in tune.

I certainly have gone on and on here. I hope this helps and forgive me for talking too much!

Best,

Bobby