Tuners - What dictates quality and high price?

[BeumontSuite]

I would be interested in knowing what makes a $700 set of tuners worth SOOOO much more than a set of $150 tuners. What in the material or the manufacture makes it worth so much more? It's the same technology i'm assuming. Is the metal 14K gold? I'm perplexed completely. And please don't say people pay for the brand name, and that sets the price point. Please, someone help me understand this.

[Matt Jacobs]

There is an article in this quarter's issue of American Lutherie about Rodger's tuners. It goes into a lot of detail.

[BeumontSuite]

The highest priced tuners at LMI are Alessi....at $938.00. It claims the plates are "Hand Engraved".

[AdamX]

There was a recent thread about this...

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=66764

[Elman Concepcion]

I just installed a set of Rogers.
They are so silky smooth it is fun to detune just to tune again

BTW - the tuners are only as good as the installer

[bacsidoan]

Doesn't the rule of diminishing return apply to just about every good things in life? Why do people pay for a $400 dinner instead of a Big Mac? Is a 400K Ferrari 200 times better than a Honda? And so on....

[Guitar]

$900 tuners exist because $600 tuners used to be the most expensive tuners you could buy, so someone decided he wanted something even more exclusive. If tomorrow, someone makes a $1200 set of tuners, they will sell to the very same person who was once satisfied with his $900 tuners.

It's really no different than why a man pays $150,000 for a Patek Phillipe.
It's because he wants to set himself apart from the man who paid $25,000 for a Audemars Piguet, who was setting himself apart from the man who paid $9000 for a Rolex, who was setting himself apart from the man who paid $80 for a Seiko, who was setting himself apart from the man who kept time with his cel phone.

This "one-upsmanship" Y Factor is essentially 100% of what drives the high end of any market. Doesn't matter if it's guitars, guitar tuners, wristwatches, the man who insists that only Lie Nielsen tools will do for his workshop, the man who spends $300,000 to buy a 1959 Les Paul, or $3,000,000 for a Stradivarius.

Mans desire to set himself apart from the pack with devices that conspicuously imply his 'superiority' has its basis in hard-wired impulses of human ego. The phenomena detaches itself from rational thought and reason pretty early on during it's evolution.

[Finn]

It all boil down to the marketing skills of the agents who position themselves strategically. The products will have some value but not to the extent of few hundreds times more compared to a different brand.

[dng]

Precision? Smoothness? Accuracy? Longevity?

I am not sure these comparisons apply but...

what's the difference between a Canon and a Leica? or a Mamyia and a Hasselblad?

[erictjie]

Precision? Smoothness? Accuracy? Longevity?

I am not sure these comparisons apply but...

what's the difference between a Canon and a Leica? or a Mamyia and a Hasselblad?

when you talk about camera , you arouse me
canon - i prefer Nikon for both body and lenses
Leica , i prefer fuji x100
hasselblad - i still like my xpan
i don't mind spending $1000 a tuner as long as it is a '$1000' tuner

[Alexandru Marian]

Yap, what matters is the photographer not the camera, same for building a guitar. A good luthier can make a super sounding guitar from ridiculously cheap and ugly wood. But then again, we feel differently and maybe work better(?) when having a quality-oozing tool. I just spent 220 euros on a freaking chisel. I already had an old one same size that came for free and did the job just fine !?!

[Mikkel]

In my experience there's a really big difference in smoothness and precision between the cheap and the expensive tuners. Not saying that you need to pay 1200 for them but at around the 500 marks I thinks its quite easy to feel the difference. Besides that it's an astectic thing. If someone pays 20k for a guitar he will also want his tuners to be beautiful. I've tried one guitar with Rodgers on and it was really easy to tune and make very small corrections, if my memory serves me well the basic model is around 600 dollar. I'd happily pay that for a set of tuners to avoid the endless frustatrion of either going too high or too low every time you touch the peg.

[OldPotter]

I am told by a friend that Rogers tuners have no appreciable backlash, you can tune down as well as up and they will hold the note. I presume that other top quality (expensive....) tuners are equally well engineered. I have seen a video of the Alessi tuner plates being hand engraved. The idea of having a proper bearing at each end of the roller on some of the Alessi's makes sense to me, but I haven't tried them. I think its a poor idea that you spend a lot of money on the tuner and then put the end of the roller in a hole in the wood and put a bit of wax on to lubricate.
Having said that, that what I have done with my inexpensive Gotoh's. Its never bothered me that I have to tune up rather than down and if the note is too sharp, tune a long way down and then tune up. Its what I have always done.

Regards Tim

[BeumontSuite]

I just switched out tuners on the guitar i built. The original ones i put on cost Approx. $18. I don't even think they had a brand name. Just....'Classical Guitar Tuner' brand tuner. The knobs were plastic, and the gears were dry and stiff, and slipped constantly. It made the guitar very hard to accurately tune. When i upgraded to $60 Gotoh's the difference was night and day. That's a difference in quality i can account for, and adds value to the instrument. I'm not so sure that dropping another $850 to upgrade to the best there is would add any benefit in playability. Sure they would look a little nicer...but $850 nicer? I think the most i would ever go with a tuner would be around $300, on a guitar made with the best woods i can find, and the quality of craftsmanship that i think would warrant such tuners. I think the quality of the instrument should equal the quality of the tuner that goes on it.

[Waddy Thomson]

Gilbert tuners are as smooth as you can make them. Esthetically, they may face a challenge, but they have no backlash, and operate flawlessly. They are also adjustable and parts can be replaced if necessary, without buying a new set. The price is in the esthetics, and popularity (demand), mostly, in my opinion.