Why buy this over a regular Korg tuner in the same form factor (a CA-50 or TM-60) that costs half as much?
The first reason I did was precision and speed. I had a clip-on tuner for guitar but wanted something more precise and faster, so that I could properly intonate the guitar. This tuner was advertised as very precise, although I have no way to check whether that is true. In any case, I've never had problems (make sure to be plugged in for fine adjustments).
The second reason is the legibility. The holographic display is indeed A LOT more legible than regular LCD displays which are known to require lots of light and a good viewing angle. This works in the dark and at practically any angle.
The third reason is style. That's about the best a tuner could ever look, really, and I was curious enough to see the display for myself that it justified at least part of the price increase.
Unfortunately, this comes at a cost:
- Regular Korg tuners have a little folding support on the back (which, admittedly, breaks easily). You can use a pick for the same purpose, but it doesn't work very well. That being said with the new display I found there was no need to set it at an angle
- Regular Korg tuners have a metronome included, and this doesn't. Sure, I have a phone, but still.
- This eats batteries twice as fast as a regular tuner
- As mentioned, it is 40 euros instead of the 20 a regular tuner costs
Changing settings is not particularly great, the buttons do their job but there's nothing remarkable about their ease of use. Fortunately the default settings will be fine for most users. I do wish the note display also included which octave the note belongs to (e.g. "E2" instead of just "E")
The quality and finish is not bad but not great either. It has a kind of "peach skin" rubberized coating which I don't particularly like, and I broke the door for the battery compartment after a few years of use (and, although I tried, you can't get spares).
In conclusion, worth the money? If you have a bad tuner, or no tuner at all, and you need something better, and you don't want to spend too much but also like the display, then perhaps. Otherwise either buy a regular tuner, or a tuner pedal if you're serious enough.
