Strings similar to Helicore but cheaper?

It looks like D'Addario Preludes are your best bet.

(There are those "Red Labels", but I don't who makes them.)

Just saying! I have no commercial interest in Concord Music, but I have bought a lot of strings from them.

I remember Red Label strings from the late 1940s. I know the music store in my central-Maryland city sold them as well as the gut-core strings I did use. I may have bought one set back then.

I never used Helicore strings except on a 5-string viola I once had, but I did recommend and string Helicore cello strings on a number of students' cellos on which they worked quite well. The real boundary for their use (in my opinion) is whether one's instrument can deliver more than the strings can produce.

In my opinion, another very good (but costly) all-metal rope-core string choice can be Pirastro's Flexocor-Permanent violin string and related Permanent (and Flexocor) cello and viola strings (2 different brands). They can produce plenty of overtones for delivery by the right instruments.

I'm aware of the usual differences in sound and playability when speaking of normal synthetic core strings. But, these ones in particular?.......

I would add that I don't think they're a direct substitute for e.g. synthetic or gut strings - I think they still really have the sound and response of a rope core string, and if you're ok with that, then they can be a good choice.

I was trying to collect an idea on a maybe excessive tension of these heavy strings.
I could be interested to test them in a particular violin, that i'd like to open a bit.
This violin now has Cantiga heavy on it, but i want to absolutely avoid strings that are more tense than these, especially in higher strings.
The problem is that i can't find a way to measure Cantiga's tension. I even asked them at the booth in an exposition. They told to write to a person and gave me a card. He never replied :)

John: I live in Italy. Fiddlershop sells from the USA.

I only was wondering about tension and thickness of the stark version, that i believe i've never seen........

I don't like strings that are too much small in diameter. And i tend to prefer more tension. But in this particular (new) violin i leaved the strings heigth more in the versant of normality......