Don't know about normal but I do do know that the south coast strings i've just fitted to my tenor in replacement of aquilas do sound much more balanced.
Thanks for the compliment AD.
Among the various string questions posted on the forum, I'm surprised this one doesn't come up more often. As
itsme pointed out, in a high reentrant set, the C string will be the thickest, and that naturally tends to make it the deadest.
Different string materials vary in tone more or less according to thickness. The biggest variation is with gut, where the thin strings can be very bright, and the thicker ones dead as a doornail. This is not neccesarily all bad, as the bass notes then die quickly - they can almost never overpower the other strings. Folks who mainly strum can often prefer this arrangement, but when you start picking individual notes, the difference in tone is painfully apparent.
Nylgut strings are designed to mimic gut, and while their tone is a bit more uniform than the natural material, they show much of the same big variation in tone between the thinner and thicker diameters in a set. Also, because they are a low density material, the difference in size is more apparent as well when playing them. You have a relatively large 3rd string.
With Flouros, you get a clearer bass, but one common misconception is that all flouros are the same. They also are formulated with different densities, and though the size difference is not as noticeable from one fromulation to the next, there is a very noticeable difference in tone from one to another.
If you go for the densest formulation, you get the clearest bass, but now, you often find that your thinner strings start to get shrill.
This is the whole point of what we do, and I beleive we are still the only ones fully embracing this concept. Our sets are made of different materials. Even the sets that are all flourocarbon use different formulations. The 3rd strings are always the densest material, and as you work to the outside, the strings become less dense. The result gives a more even tone: 3rd strings are relatively brighter compared to the 1st & 4th, but the outside strings never get overly bright.
"Lagniappe" (South Louisiana for a little something extra), is that the 3rd string is also not as big relative to the other strings, so the set is easier to play.
Win, Win!