Hi, Patrick: Actually I enjoyed the use of the strobe tuners which I owned from 1973 to the middle 'nineties. It is a misconception that you cannot read stretch with them, an idea which was based on our professional community's decades old stigma. The real fun with the strobe is that you can see all stretch in octaves, right before your eyes. You can turn the vernier and measure the stretch. Of course, you can apply your knowledge of tuning ratios and do as sophisticated an electronic tuning as you wish with this device. The early Conn tube-type strobes had motor bearings that you could lubricate with a drop of machine oil; the later sealed bearings were more trouble when they got noisy (though I think you could lubricate them too, after puncturing a hole in the housing). My last was a Peterson. The LED lights would die, and many times I would find the problem on the circuit board and solder them back up again. I remember a good hard fall over the back of Kawai UST. I never bought an Accutuner and finally went completely aural when the Peterson died for good. The strobes were fun, if old-fashioned; you could probably use them to pass the test today, if you were determined. (The same determination applied to the completely aural test would make a better tuner, of course.) The real garage sale bargain in ETD's, possibly a teaching tool if you really wanted to master your aural skills. Not really that much less sophisticated in concept than the circle of LED lights; just think of the fact that you pay a lot less to have a real motor....and sometimes real vacuum tubes! I doubt the old tube-type Conns will see a revival like hi-fi systems have seen.... Bill Shull, RPT In a message dated 1/6/01 7:47:18 PM Pacific Standard Time, greeneguy63@mindspring.com writes: << Today, I had a lady give me a Peterson Stobe tuner. I had never seen one before. I tried it out and it actually helped me with a few notes up in the treble. I have heard mostly bad things about them. Can someone give me a good answer about whether one should use it or not? Or is that a can of worms best left unopened? Thanks Patrick >>
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