Product: Furman PL-Tuner
Price Paid: US $199.00
Submitted
03/03/2001
at
12:32pm
by
Anonymous
Ease of Use
:
5
Have had for about six months, use for bass. Not as accurate as some, but convenient. Light bulbs are difficult to replace, had to break them to get them out. Needs a footswith to mute, although due to the design would need extra circuitry. I mostly use in orchestra pit, so I'm sitting right next to it. Filters work well, no more noise from light dimmers
Sound Quality
:
7
Again, with bass guitar, somtimes with electric guitar, but only at home. I go from my bass to expander unit, then into Hartke head. Slight pops when bypass is switched
Reliability
:
9
So good, so far. Noise filtration is great, I've used it when big lighting rigs are in use, and even had to run it with a generator. No noise at all.
Customer Support
:
10
One call to factory, good support.
Overall Rating
:
5
Wish it had footswitch jack for bypass, somtimes I will use volume pedal instead of bypassing it. I would replace it with another Furman filter, but a Korg or Peterson tuner.
Product: Furman PL-Tuner
Price Paid: US $125.00 used
Submitted
09/14/2000
at
09:26am
by
Rick Norman
Email: mofinco<at>webuypayments dot com
Ease of Use
:
7
About as easy to use as it can be. Eight power outlets on the back need no explanation. The pull-out rack lights with dimmer work great - Furman has that stuff down and are exactly as expected. There are a couple of things that could be done to improve it:
One is that it should have rear mounted input/output jacks for the tuner, like Korg and others who make rack tuners. A front-mounted input jack for ?guest? inputs is fine, but having nothing but front-mounted input/output jacks makes for awkward connections to other rack gear. I?d take two less electrical outlets to get rear-mounted tuner jacks. This isn?t this unit?s critical weakness, though.
This is: Tuner accuracy. The tuner IS stable, no question. The accuracy leaves something to be desired. It has one green LED to show when you?re ?in tune? and one ?sharp? and one ?flat? LED, both red, to show when you?re not. The sharp/flat LEDs blink at varying speeds to indicate how far out of tune you are. If you?re really off, it blinks fast. The closer you get to ?in tune?, the more slowly it blinks. Finally you get into the ?in tune? zone (?zone? being the operative word) and the green LED lights up.
The MAJOR problem is that there is a range of what this thing considers ?in tune?. You can be sharp or flat by several cents and this unit will numbly shine its green eye at you. While I had it in the rack, I would tune up, but I would still sound weird and out of tune. I?d then have to fine-tune by ear. This is a bad use of stage time between songs (I used this as part of my stage rig with my band.) I thought I had a bad batch of strings (I buy in bulk), so I put fresh strings on every guitar (all six of ?em) and still sounded off most of the time. I finally tried an experiment at home and listened with the amp on (I usually tune with the power amp in standby). I was amazed at how many microtones I could adjust a string, both flat and sharp, and the green LED stayed on. I then plugged into my Korg tuner and saw just how far off it was. Bummer.
A lesser problem with the tuner is that it?s slow to recognize that you?ve plucked a different string. You have to completely deaden the string you just tuned, pause a moment, then pluck the next string. Not bad, unless you?re used to a Korg (which I?ve been using since 1989), which lets you rapidly jump from string to string.
Sound Quality
:
No Opinion
The best thing I can say is that the tuner didn?t color the sound when it was in-line.
Reliability
:
No Opinion
Didn?t keep it long enough to comment, but Furman stuff in general is very well thought of.
Customer Support
:
No Opinion
Didn?t deal with them.
Overall Rating
:
5
As a rack power strip and light source - it?s a 10. As a tuner, it?s a zero. (You?re either in-tune or you?re not!) That?s a MAJOR bummer, because this is a natural combination to have in a rack unit. I?ve stopped using the unit and gone back to using my trusty old Korg DT-1 Pro.
I have half-a-guess that Furman may not make the tuner circuit themselves - perhaps they just buy it from someone else and install it in their existing great power strips. If so, they should just buy Korg circuitry. That?s a guess, as I said - I don?t have any real way of knowing. If not:
?Hello, Furman? Your literature says this tuner is highly stable. It sure is. Now, how about highly accurate? Get this thing in the Korg accuracy range, give us rear-mounted input/output and you?ll have a gem.?
