river
Newbie
- Messages
- 19
I just wanted to relate a very positive experience with these tuners, which are a worthy upgrade.
I've always stuck to vintage style tuners- either Gotoh or Tonepros, because they are light, beautiful, smooth-functioning, and seem to help maintain a more resonant vintage tone.
The Gotoh stealth tuners are less than half the weight of Gotoh klusons. My Kluson style set here is 23 grams per tuner, or 140 for all six, for a weight of five ounces. The Stealth set is 11 grams per tuner, 2.6 ounces total, for a savings of 2.4 ounces. Wow!
Saving this amount of weight, at the end of the headstock, is tremendous for dealing with a neck-heavy guitar. Think of the leverage! Neck heavy is a problem when building a resonant guitar with a featherweight body (I'm using it with a 3.1 lb swamp ash strat). The problem is 100% solved with these tuners. I'm very happy!
Besides the weight savings these tuners are well-made and have a finer 18:1 gear ratio which I find helpful. Another plus is that the dual truss rod weighs 2 ounces more than a single action truss rod, so that can be compensated with these tuners. I'm not yet certain if that will help the sound be more like a vintage neck, that's something to experiment with on another build.
Hows the tone? I'm loving it, very resonant and "open." I also have a fat-finger which makes more of a difference when using these tuners as opposed to the heavier ones. It solidifies the tone and is a bit like turning on a compression pedal- a little less dynamics, increased sustain.
I got mine on ebay for $115 shipped. To me, to correct for a neck heavy guitar in such a clean way, is very worth it, but I'd probably keep sticking to regular Kluson-style tuners on guitars with heavier bodies. I'll give it a try though, just to make sure I'm not missing anything tone-wise.
The Gotoh stealth tuners are less than half the weight of Gotoh klusons. My Kluson style set here is 23 grams per tuner, or 140 for all six, for a weight of five ounces. The Stealth set is 11 grams per tuner, 2.6 ounces total, for a savings of 2.4 ounces. Wow!
Saving this amount of weight, at the end of the headstock, is tremendous for dealing with a neck-heavy guitar. Think of the leverage! Neck heavy is a problem when building a resonant guitar with a featherweight body (I'm using it with a 3.1 lb swamp ash strat). The problem is 100% solved with these tuners. I'm very happy!
Besides the weight savings these tuners are well-made and have a finer 18:1 gear ratio which I find helpful. Another plus is that the dual truss rod weighs 2 ounces more than a single action truss rod, so that can be compensated with these tuners. I'm not yet certain if that will help the sound be more like a vintage neck, that's something to experiment with on another build.
Hows the tone? I'm loving it, very resonant and "open." I also have a fat-finger which makes more of a difference when using these tuners as opposed to the heavier ones. It solidifies the tone and is a bit like turning on a compression pedal- a little less dynamics, increased sustain.
I got mine on ebay for $115 shipped. To me, to correct for a neck heavy guitar in such a clean way, is very worth it, but I'd probably keep sticking to regular Kluson-style tuners on guitars with heavier bodies. I'll give it a try though, just to make sure I'm not missing anything tone-wise.
