16 or less but don't want a louder bow or picking up so much speed it changes my arrow setup a lot. Any ideas on materials, string makers and is 3" shorter than the bow a good standard with the longbow?
Strand count doesn't mean much because some materials are small in diameter, some larger. A strand of Dynaflight '97 is almost twice the diameter of 8190 or BCY-X. 450+ is even larger than Dynaflight '97.
My favorite material to date is BCY-X. Quiet, stable, durable. Unless you are comparing extremes, speed difference will generally be small. Still, you may have to change point weight, even arrow spine, because of differences other than speed.
3" shorter is the AMO standard, but not all bows follow it. Best thing to do is measure the string that puts your bow at proper brace and go with that. I've seen longbows go from 1.5" to 4" shorter in string length.