Strobe tuners came up several times in a discussion on
intonation, and rather than hijack that thread (more importantly, to stay on Dave's good side ) I thought a separate thread might be a good idea. There are also some relevant comments in a more general discussion of
tuning techniques from about a year ago - apparently before SOM picked up his Peterson.
Picking up where we left off, son_of_magni was saying,
The VS-II is a digital model. I've never used them but I have my doubts that they are as good as the analog type. Mine is a Peterson R450 which I really like. Peterson is probably the preferred brand in general, though I think the old Conn's are just as good.
I was a bit skeptical of the digital display myself, but not after trying it. I'm delighted with my V-SAM, though I haven't tried one of their higher end models for comparison.
They claim the same accuracy (1/10 of a cent) for all their tuners, and I see no reason to doubt it. I just did a little experiment. I started holding my bass (not strapped) in close to playing position, with the surface of the body perpendicular to the floor, but the neck horizontal (3:00). While playing an open string, and rotating the body around the neck axis by less than ten degrees, I could clearly watch the display go sharp and flat just by virtue of gravity pulling on the neck. Seriously - that's like just leaning backward or forward a little. Try that with your typical needle tuner, or even a Korg rackmount (with 1 cent accuracy).
I think they did a superb job of implementing the display, and find it very easy to read. There are some comments out there from people who claim it's hard to use, takes them forever to chase the strobe - and all I can conclude is that they just haven't adjusted to how incredibly sensitive it is.
You can buy a new VS-II or V-SAM for $220-240 (same tuner, but differences in other features), but if you want a non-digital display or maybe a rack mount unit, then it's a pretty big jump to $450 or more. You'd also need one of the high end models for stretch tuning of pianos, though I think (not certain) the VS models may come with more built in tunings for guitarists and such. Depends on your budget and needs.
If you consider either of the VS models, take a careful look at the feature differences - you have to dig pretty deep to find all the details. Aside from the obvious stuff (SAM has metronome and tone generator features), as I recall the II had an inline tuning mode with bypass that the SAM does not.
The thing that swayed me to the SAM is that when you set the reference pitch, e.g. to A=440, then A stays at 440 as you switch to different tunings or temperaments. In contrast, the II sort of figures out where C would be relative to your selected reference (I forget what temperament it uses), and then holds C constant as you change tunings/temperaments (i.e. A does not remain at 440).
They did this because a lot of people who use weird (er, alternate) tunings seem to prefer it this way, but that's not what I wanted. Your choice.
My only negative comments are that the manual is poorly written, and the user interface could perhaps be a bit more intuitive (aside from the strobe display itself), so it takes half an hour or so of experimenting to figure out the controls. Also, some of the buttons feel a little cheesy.
But once you get past that, it works great. It locks on fast, even to an open low B, and is arguably fast enough to check your intonation while playing in real time (not that I've done so). I also got great support from them in arranging the exchange through my local dealer, and if you're really into arcane tuning details they host a fairly active discussion group on their site.
-Bob
