The Finest Tuning Equipment Money Can
Buy.
Why
Aren't Other Tuners This Accurate?
Because tuner manufacturers have decided that their idea of
"close" is "good enough" for you the
musician!
In
order to get close enough so that your instrument's pitch
is properly and consistently shown, a high definition
display is mandatory, only Petersons stroboscopic and
Virtual Strobe displays make it into this
category.
A
tuner can only be accurate if its display is
accurate.
This may sound obvious, but can a tuner really be accurate
if it only has a simple green light to indicate "in tune"?
Can it tell you accurately how out-of-tune you are? Can it
display with equal accuracy over the entire range? Unless
it has a high definition display, the answer is of course,
NO!
LED
and needle type displays are very basic and are not capable
of displaying pitch exactly, eg some tuners use LED
displays but never use more than 20 LEDs to represent 100
Cents (the span of one semitone or one "half-step"). This
obviously forces them to compromise or simplify the
readout. This also applies to tuners with so-called
"strobe-mode". It's a similar story with needle tuners
which have a limited number of reference points across the
dial (about a dozen) which has the same effect. If you hold
a switched-off LCD/needle meter at a slant then you will
see these reference points are already mapped
out!
Imagine
a tape measure which does not show subdivisions under 1
metre. That is fine if you only want to measure the
proverbial "board side of the barn" but it's not much use
in custom-fitting cabinets in your kitchen. The V-SAM can
accurately display any tone within its range to within
1/1000th of a semitone. If this sounds like overkill then
try it and hear for yourself. The difference is real and
will astound you!
