Anyone tried these Heart-sound carbon fiber tuners?

[rob2966]

In the bass guitar world the weight of the tuners can be a significant issue. However, a) bass tuners are much heavier and b) they are on the end of a much longer "lever" than with an acoustic guitar.

So, if you are looking at these CF tuners to better balance the instrument, I guess that would depend if your current instrument is really that neck heavy. In my experience, most acoustic guitars are not until you get to smaller travel type guitars. For example, my Martin LX1 Little Martin definitely has neck dive and these tuners would probably help alleviate that (although I suspect not worth the investment given the cost of the instrument they would be going onto). They would be cool on a CA Cargo though, very fitting.

If your consideration is the old "headstock mass affects the tone" argument then that is a personal call. Some believe it, some don't.

Later
Rob

[drive-south]

Are the actual gears carbon fiber or just the baseplates and posts?

[Acousticado]

Originally Posted by drive-south

Are the actual gears carbon fiber or just the baseplates and posts?

All components are CF except the screws that affix the tuner to the headstock.

[ac]

I've written them in the past regarding how much the CF gears wear against each other and they said they planned testing and then sending me results. That was some months ago.

Anyone else heard more from this regarding carbon on carbon wear--if there is any issue or not?

[dadio917]

I should have said this is on a little carbon fiber rainsong parlor. Fairly neck heavy. not that big of a deal but when you got time on your hands you think of doing stuff like changing tuners.

from what I can tell, the gotoh sg510v would drop about 1.6 ounces from the stock gotoh sg301 (and look cool). That's the weight of a snark and heavy capo. so...not much change.

the heart sound would drop 6 ounces.

[martingitdave]

Seems like it would be great on a 12 string guitar with 21:1 ratio. That's a lot of weight on the headstock, otherwise.


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[douglasfan1]

I'm quite interested in it. Thanks for bringing out here.
Any update for these tuners?

[Wade Hampton]

Not that I’m aware of. I had to go back and reread the thread to remind myself of what it was about.

Since it’s been two and a half years since this thread was started, it might be that Heart-Sound tuners never progressed past the prototype stage, and never entered full production. On the other hand, maybe they’re selling like hot cakes and we’re just completely oblivious to that.

I kinda doubt that, though: folks on this forum collectively keep track on all sorts of things that relate to guitars. If Heart-Sound carbon fiber tuners were to become common aftermarket items, I suspect that we would have heard about it by now.

So my guess is that they haven’t really hit the market in significant numbers yet.


whm

[guitarwebguy]

I can say as a multiple 12 string owner (guitars and banjos) that the weight of 12 tuners DOES make a difference in how the instrument balances and feels when you are playing, especially my carbon fiber Emerald X20-12. I’d love to have a set of lightweight tuners

[ManyMartinMan]

Originally Posted by Monsoon1

Call me a skeptic, but is the weight of tuners really a thing?

Not to me. It's an excuse. I have owned most makes and models of guitars over my, almost, 40 years of professional play. Almost all of that standing with my guitars on straps. I've never had a "neck dive" issue or problem, with any guitar, from any manufacturer, regardless of 6 or 12 tuners.

There is ALWAYS a balance point on any pendulum, lever or other machine. Simply balance the guitar, with its strap, where it hangs naturally and play it there. All of that said, the OP never mentioned an issue with neck dive.

[Wade Hampton]

It depends. Guitar necks made from mahogany or Spanish cedar tend to be fairly light, but maple necks are quite a bit heavier. Some guitars ARE pretty headstock-heavy, even if you’ve never encountered any.

One that I owned for a few years was a beautiful, terrific-sounding Mossman Winter Wheat 12 string, which was the first really fancy abalone-encrusted guitar I ever owned.

It sounded wonderful, but it had 12 full-sized Grover Rotomatic tuners with stock metal buttons on it.

Trust me, it was more than a little bit neck-heavy. When I played it with a strap standing up, as you mentioned I found the balance point. But when I played it sitting down - which was most of the time, because I only rarely gigged with it - when I’d put the guitar on my lap the headstock would try to DRIVE straight to the floor.

So, yes, neck-heavy acoustic guitars do exist, they’re not an urban legend, and some of us simply like lightweight tuners. So in my case, anyway, it’s not an “excuse,” it’s a personal preference.

Hope that makes sense.


Wade Hampton Miller

[drive-south]

None more neck heavy and than a Gibson Firebird. They use huge Grover banjo tuners and the strap attached near the heel. Moving the strap helps. Replacing the tuners with Steinberger gearless tuners also helps.

[drive-south]

I could see carbon fiber tuners with metal gears. I don't believe cf gears would hold up very well.

[Acousticado]

I can shed a bit of light on this, albeit going back to early 2018 when I had ordered a custom woody-top otherwise all-carbon fiber Emerald Chimaera 6/12 doubleneck.

Although carbon fiber is the ideal medium to build such a guitar as lightweight as possible, 18 full-size metal tuners definitely made that guitar headstock(s) heavy. I had an earlier version of the Chimaera that had the Gotoh Stealth minis and although the weight/balance was great, Emerald stopped using them because they were not robust enough over time to handle the tension, and failures happened.

While my custom Chimaera was being built, both Alistair Hay (owner, Emerald Guitars in Ireland) and myself were communicating with reps of Heart-Sound. Since Emerald builds a number of models requiring 12+ tuners, weight was/is a big deal to them. Although Alistair felt at the time that the Heart-Sound tuners could work and were robust enough (including the gears), the aesthetic of the “finish” was a problem because they were really just a bland solid grey carbon fiber color. Alistair even tried to buff them out and although it did help to provide some lustre, there was no way players would settle for such an appearance on their guitars. It seems that applying another finish (e.g. painting) was not a reasonable option. Plus, the time it would take to buff or apply another finish would not be practical.

Heart-Sound told us they had no plans to change their process in the foreseeable future. Despite how good and strong they may be, if the aesthetic can’t be made to work, then these tuners wouldn’t be viable. That was close to two years ago. I have not pursued it further.

[charles Tauber]

Thanks for the update, Tom.