Sonic Research Turbo Tuner ST-300 - Good/Great Tuner?

I've had one of these since they launched. I sometimes find it a bit jumpy. I also picked up one of the new Peterson mini strobe tuners which I planned to replace the ST300 with, but I really don't like the ghosty display If you're not standing directly above it. It does seem like a more stable tuner though and I love the top mount jacks.
 
Boy_Narf said:
I've had one of these since they launched. I sometimes find it a bit jumpy. I also picked up one of the new Peterson mini strobe tuners which I planned to replace the ST300 with, but I really don't like the ghosty display If you're not standing directly above it. It does seem like a more stable tuner though and I love the top mount jacks.
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The turbo is the best pedal tuner by a large margin, literaly 5 X more accurate than any other tuner other than the old full strobe Peterson. Even these are not better. It is the ONLY tuner that I don't feel the need to sweeten the result and it just sounds "in".
 
Bought a new one recently, sent it back due to the jumpiness of the display. Tried various guitars/pickups too. Will be sticking with my Peterson Strobo Plus HD.
 
SweetPete said:
Bought a new one recently, sent it back due to the jumpiness of the display. Tried various guitars/pickups too. Will be sticking with my Peterson Strobo Plus HD.
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I think there is firmware available that improves performance. I remember doing an update a while back.
 
SweetPete said:
Bought a new one recently, sent it back due to the jumpiness of the display. Tried various guitars/pickups too. Will be sticking with my Peterson Strobo Plus HD.
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It's not a real strobe and no more accurate than a TU3 but the display is very nice and clear .
 
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Dave Merrill said:
How much better is it than the Fractal ones, in what ways? Built in sure is handy.
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The fractal is fine for in between songs live but I wouldn't set up a guitar with it and at home I don't use it without feeling the need to tweak the guitar to be "in". The Turbo is the only pedal tuner that does a 1/50th cent and sounds sweet straight off the display. I used a DT2 and a DT7 in the past and a big Peterson strobe but the new Peterson stuff is not any better than a Boss TU3 or a Poly. I think you just need to find a tuner that sounds 'in' to you and then make sure all the band have the same one.
 
Andy Eagle said:
The fractal is fine for in between songs live but I wouldn't set up a guitar with it and at home I don't use it without feeling the need to tweak the guitar to be "in". The Turbo is the only pedal tuner that does a 1/50th cent and sounds sweet straight off the display. I used a DT2 and a DT7 in the past and a big Peterson strobe but the new Peterson stuff is not any better than a Boss TU3 or a Poly. I think you just need to find a tuner that sounds 'in' to you and then make sure all the band have the same one.
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Do you use a sweetened tuning with it?
Is the default tuning sweetened at all?
 
Andy Eagle said:
No you don't need to. The other tuners are just not perfectly 'in'.
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I agree. I have had a Sonic Research ST-200, precursor to the 300 but with identical accuracy, for approx 10 years, and a couple Feiten tuning guitars among my instruments. IF you want your Feitenized guitars very in tune, you will need to manually enter the Feiten offsets to the ST-200 (maybe the 300 has them built in already, don't know). But if it's a "normal" guitar, no offsets are needed.

I can tune with a Boss or Korg etc. tuner, and it almost always is out if I doublecheck with the ST-200; it's never happened that the reverse scenario has occurred in 10 years (that I get even close to in tune with the ST, and a Korg, Peterson, or Boss etc. has subsequently indicated that I wasn't perfectly in tune).

The Turbo tuners are so accurate that, offsets or not, if you tune according to what your system your guitar uses, you will be as in tune as your guitar can get. As noted, it's  far more accurate than any other pedal tuner. If the display is "jumpy", odds are good it's due to a guitar that isn't terribly stable, tuningwise. Just like using a microscope at 50x vs. 500x, the jumpiness gets exaggerated by the extreme resolution. If my Sonic Research tuner was jumping around, I'd check my nut, intonation, neck bolts (if applicable), and tremelo (if applicable), and even my string wear before I'd ever attribute it to the tuner being wonky.

So if your guitar uses offsets, use 'em. But no sweetening is necessary unless that's so. Of course, if you like various compensations after being really in tune, you can always put your personal spin on your tuning, and Peterson does provide a few schemes for doing this, whereas I think Sonic Research may require you to program them into the tuner. (Takes approx. 1 minute per alternate tuning).
 
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My understanding is that "sweetening" is about different compromises to deal w the fact the guitars (at least ones with normal frets) aren't physically capable of playing fully in tune, because of the physics involved. It's always a compromise, but there can be different approaches, and different ones have been recommended by different well respected people, to the point of having various systems built into different tuners.

However, my understanding is that many people think completely straight "unsweetened" running isn't as attractive as some other systems.

That makes me curious about this idea that the Sonic Research tuners are so much more accurate that no sweetening is needed. I don't get it.
 
Dave Merrill said:
My understanding is that "sweetening" is about different compromises to deal w the fact the guitars (at least ones with normal frets) aren't physically capable of playing fully in tune, because of the physics involved. It's always a compromise, but there can be different approaches, and different ones have been recommended by different well respected people, to the point of having various systems built into different tuners.

However, my understanding is that many people think completely straight "unsweetened" running isn't as attractive as some other systems.

That makes me curious about this idea that the Sonic Research tuners are so much more accurate that no sweetening is needed. I don't get it.
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The turbo tuner is unique in that it’s very fast, accurate, and steady. I haven’t found anything else that does all three.
Out of the box it is set to straight A440 tuning. I have four tunings in mine. Straight, Buzz Feiten, Buzz Feiten intonation and Van Halen. I use the BF tuning live and find it sounds great throughout the majority of the neck.
 
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