IMHO... if there is such a thing (a
humble opinion, that is!)...
Uncle Bob has pretty much said both here on the TGF
http://64.119.167.71/forums/showthre...513#post387513
and via the Taylor website at:
http://www.taylorguitars.com/news/products.html#prod4
that the
Taylor Pings are 18:1 (not your "everyday" Pings, there!) and their gears are machined to extremely close tolerances (which "virtually" eliminates the "slop" or backlash commonly found in mid-range and lower-range tuners). In other words, the tuners are NOT Pings "by default"!
Some of the
potential pitfalls of these (and any other) tuners:
* excessive clearance of the tuning peg shaft inside the bushing/nut
* insufficiently "snugged" bushing nuts, on the "face" side of the headstock
* excessive clearance at either end of the tuning key shaft (bearing surfaces)
* crappy metallurgy in the pinion (tuning peg shaft) gear and/or the
worm (tuning key shaft) gear
* poorly formed or "rough" concave area where the string wraps around the tuning peg
If a tuner - any tuner - won't hold a particular string "in tune", I'd rule out a few possibilities before blaming the tuner...
* not enough winds around the tuning peg shaft, OR not properly "locked in" (depending upon stringer's preferred method)
* loose ball-end... snug that critter up!
* bad string - yep! new out of the box
* bad string - old and/or stretched to death.
* tuning DOWN to pitch rather than UP (which then allows string tension to pull through the "slop" or backlash, yielding a flat pitched string).
* failure to realize that tuning a guitar represents a
compromise!!
Change 'em out if you must... they're made without the locator screw tabs to make it easy on ya... but I'm not sure you'll be getting a (much) superior tuner for your efforts.
