Man talk about nit picky - I have two friends who both say locking tuners detract from an instrument's tone because you typically don't have many (if any) wraps of wire on the post. This may be a waste of a topic, I don't know, but have any of you pro's ever noticed any difference? I love lockers myself, I can't imagine there's any difference tone-wise. Load up yer answer cannons and let 'em fly!
L.B.
p.s. one of the guys is a luthier, the other a "real" musician.

Guitars painted with light colors have a woodier tone than dark guitars because the light paint lets more of the natural tone come through.

Not a pro, but the number of wraps (locking vs. non locking) sounds silly to me. You still have to tighten the string to the same tension. Too much Kool-Aid.

Some of 'em use posts with staggered-heights for a sharp breaking-angle over the nut, or just seem to have their through-holes (where the strings go through the tuner-post) kind of low, to address that.

You could also shim 'em from the back of the headstock, too; some people have used a tapered shim- looks like a little tiny ramp- between in-line tuners and the back of the headstock.

These various methods of lowering the string relative to the nut also help reduce the need for "string-trees" on the face of the headstock, which would in turn help with tuning stability.

IIRC, the debate was that locking tuners had more mass to them and as a result, the sound was brighter? Anyway, people put WAY TOO much attention in to that. Pickups, amps, and speakers have much more to say about tone than tuners.

I can only tell you that when I bought the Santa Cruz, it came with ebony tuner buttons. Nice, but who cares, right? Then some acoustic guys started raving about that, what a difference it makes, blah blah blah....

Now, I don't want to say that it makes NO difference. I want to say that, "Who cares? It cannot make enough of a difference to matter."

I sat in a room with some of the top guys in recording. (we were in the lounge of Michael Wagners studio...) discussing a verbal dust up between two converter manufacturers, both well-respected. And George Massenburg asked the premiere question: If Mr X is right in his contention that we should not be able to hear any difference beyond a certain point, then how do we explain the huge number of respected engineers and producers who can repeatedly hear and detect that difference? They must be hearing something. If we grant that Mr X is correct and it isn't what we are saying that it is, then what are they hearing? Too many people hear it to discount it.

We all know that there are differences, small and large, among gear choices. But some strokes are too fine for me to care about.

On a practical tip, locking tuners make the string-changing and tune-up process a LOT faster... If these tuners have made some kind of change in the sound of my guitars, I certainly haven't noticed it at all. As Bill said, this may just be the kind of thing that is just too miniscule to bother me.

I love locking tuners, and really doubt there is a measurable difference, from an audio standpoint. A bat might hear the difference, but.....we're divorced!

Speaking as someone who started out on cello with plain old friction tech ebony peg tuners, I can say I definitely prefer the mechanical tuners found on most guitars.

I can't say I've noticed any tonal differences, but believe me, the ones on guitars are much easier to deal with.

Some of the locking-tuners out on the market are also deliberately "low mass" designs, as well. Sperzels are pretty light, and the locking Klusons TonePros aren't too much more massive than their non-locking counterparts. And loads of people have gotten great tones from Gibsons with Grovers, which, "regular" or locking, aren't exactly feather-weights.

And having some additional mass there at the headstock isn't a bad thing in and of itself- it could be good, it could be not so good, depending on the guitar, the player, and what is wanted. More mass there can add sustain and fullness of tone, while subtracting a very little from the woodiness and "air" of a given guitar. Either way, it's but one small part of the puzzle amongst many parts.

Remember those bell-brass "Fathead" and "Fatfinger" devises that Aspen Pittman/Groove Tubes were hawking, that attached to your headstock to add sustain, fullness of tone, and improved consistency across the fretboard? Same idea- more mass at the headstock. You can get a similar effect by carefully pressing the end of your headstock against a hard wall or hardwood door or cabinet or the like, and comparing the unplugged tone before and while doing so. It actually works- by partially immobilizing the headstock, thus losing less vibration-energy from the strings.

I'd say, for the most part, I'd go with improved performance over sweating subtle, semi-imaginary tone-gremlins.

They want to charge way more than they are worth for seeing the Emperor's New Clothes?

Not to mention the power of suggestion and the ability of the mind to fool itself.

I'm not saying that the engineers aren't hearing something, just that its possible that they aren't.

I think this is the case more often than not.

Its like lipstick colors; the human eye can only differentiate so precisely, and its been proven that some of these shades are indistinguishable to the human eye but are marketed as different due to a minuscule difference in 1 of the pigments.

Have 5 strats, two with locking tuners (one with a string tree and the other with none), can't hear any difference as far as tone goes with the single wrap (even though the engineers might), but I do love the speed and the ease when changing strings...you can pop one on and off at a gig before the song ends (not a pro) but just putting in a plug for the locking tuners...the extra weight might be welcomed if you have a little neck rising problem...one other thing to consider is that according to Fender, they help you stay in tune better when using the whammy bar...

They want to charge way more than they are worth for seeing the Emperor's New Clothes?

[/quote]

You are missing the point here. They CAN with REGULARITY hear the difference, and tell you which is which... this is not about bullshit, this is about differences being small. Perhaps the kind of difference as we might notice in the sound of the guitar if we were to change pick thicknesses, or string brands.

How much do these small changes matter to YOU?

I am a fan of detail. I recognize that the Devil is in the details and I'll pay a little more to get better quality.

But I also recognize that, at some point, we're just being tweaky to be tweaky assholes... trying to top each other or something. That point resides at a different place for each of us.

I buy strings, pickups, and choose construction woods for their sound (and, in the case of the wood, stability...), I select mechanical pieces/parts like tuners, nuts and bridges for their quality and reliability. Sound would be a secondary consideration.

I'm betting that a real tweaky guy could present a parts mod for the stock caps, resistors, and pots that would blow away any difference between tuner types in terms of how these parts affect the sound of any instrument. But you can't see that difference obviously... so you can't point it out, brag about it, and feel superior because of the coolness factor of your decision. (Check out Michael Percy Audio for high quality choices in electronic parts. I used TKD dual deck stepped attenuators in my custom built studio attenuator, along with Forssell op amps and other tweaky stuff....) Fortunately, not to many guitar players think about this stuff much past 'orange drop' caps.

Thanks to all for the input. I just thought it was weird that two friends of mine 9who don't know each other) both have the same (what I consider BS) opinion of tuners! I absolutely love locking tuners, just curious if anybody else ever got into such a bizaare discussion. Bill, you touched on audiophile madness and yes that reaches into the 4th dimension.
L.B.

Just curious, what do either of your friends base their opinions concerning locking-tuner on? Direct personal experience, or internet chatter, flotsam and jetsam?

And, is it a matter of how much down-pressure there is or isn't at the nut, due to the number of turns wound around the tuner-post affecting the strings breaking-angle there?

Or, is it some vague voodoo about how many winds of string there are on the post, in itself?

Caevan,
I think flotsam and jetsam although one is a luthier and the other long time musician. I didn't argue with either one but a few wraps of wire on a post just can't make a noticeable difference!! We may as well discuss the thickness of the decal on the headstock while we're at it.
L.B.

Well, what color decal?

My personal opinion is that locking tuners don't make any appreciable audio difference. They also don't help a guitar stay in tune better. Nor are they faster for string changes.

By the way, I own 14 strats - 4 with locking tuners - and have 30 years playing experience. But what do I know?

That could be a part of the problem... us old guys aren't supposed to hear so well anymore. Just because -I- can't hear it, doesn't mean that nobody can hear it.

Which brings up an interesting point..... scientists and doctors tell us that as we age, we lose our hearing, frequency-based, highest tones first, as the fine hairs that detect the higher registers harden and break off, and do not regenerate. (A friend of mine claims that it is frequency-based, in the range of the female speaking voice...)

So why is it that the very best mastering engineers are in their 50s and 60s?

While I've certainly heard some engineers make this sort of claim, I have never heard of any of these engineers demonstrating it in bias-controlled conditions. Expectation Bias (aka, the Placebo Effect) is some powerful cognitive mojo, and just because you have half a century of experience in a professional recording studio that doesn't make you immune to half a million years of evolution.

And George Massenburg has admitted this (though in not so many words), pointing out in a recent online discussion that engineers don't get paid for their ability to score better than chance in a double-blind ABX test but rather for their ability to make quick and effective decisions based on whatever it is they're hearing. Or whatever it is they think they're hearing.

I brought in his name just to show that we are talking about a group of professionals, not just some local guys with aspirations. And I really haddn't intended to go down a path discussing engineering, the point was that there are small differences in sound made by various choices decided upon along the way, and that at some point we each have to decide when a given choice we make for convenience is darned convenient and worth any minuscule change it might bring to the sound. George is one of the more practical and brighter guys in the business who is willing to share his experiences and is curious about yours. But this is all a distraction from the original post.

It would be stupid to sit here and argue about testing and testing procedures of an off-topic example. Particularly since I listed none, and a bunch of you guys have made some wild assumptions.

I can only tell you that I have been working with audio since the 1960s, and there have been an awfully large number of times when someone in a given situation has perked up his ears and said something about what was being done, which has led us to find and correct a problem. This is not 'golden ears', this is paying attention and focusing. And this is more important to me than blind/double blind, etc testing.

And I'll tell you what: customers have a far higher expectation bias than the average engineer who uses the stuff daily... if for no other reason than that old saw, familiarity breeds contempt. And workmen seldom rhapsodize about their tools. (unless it is a new one... see sentence above.)

If you want to enter into some exotic or esoteric discussion of how blind listening tests should be run to prove whatever it is that you want to prove, gearslutz is the perfect place to hang out. They thrive on picking things to pieces. Me, I just wanna good mic, good recording setup, good guitar and a good amp, and I wanna make music.

I always wondered if locking tuners would make a difference on an axe with no wang-bar - like my telecaster. Don't see why they should. I did put big gold Grovers on a Seagull Acoustic Electric and it seems to sustain a bit more now maybe due to the extra weight.

A little added mass there, coupled (no pun intended... well, maybe a little bit) with tighter fitting, more solid construction of the tuners, probably would enhance sustain a little. Why wouldn't it?

I have 3 guitars with locking tuners and 4 without locking tuners and I can tell a huge difference.

The guitars with locking tuners get their strings changed about twice as often as the guitars without locking tuners because string changing is so much easier with the locking tuners. So the guitars with fresher strings on them sound much better, and they have the locking tuners. I credit great sound to locking tuners.

Seriously though, even with new strings on locking or non-locking tuners, I can't tell a difference between the two. But, I LOVE LOCKING TUNERS!!

Lefty, for fun you should challenge these guys to a string-changing race...

I do believe that there is a thing on the guitar called a NUT. It is between that NUT and this thing called a bridge that the string vibrates.
Worry about your luthier friend...He's getting close to the edge!! :o)

i think in this situation it is the 2 nuts that Lefty mentions that are the problem

Sorry..I thought it was about tuners making a difference in tone. My Bad

As for tone, I don't think they make a difference, as for staying in tune I don't think they make a difference even though the Fender Luthiers claim they do, but what do they know?, as for speed of changing strings, the locking tuners will win hands down...

Then surely you've noticed just as many instances when someone in a given situation has perked up his ears and said something about what was being done, and then later discovered that in fact something else -- or perhaps even nothing -- was actually being done.