Ears or No Ears? (On your headstock)

Ears or No Ears (on your headstock)


  • Total voters
    65
I'm somewhere between "don't care" and "depends on the instrument". All but one of my ukes has ears: the one that doesn't is the 8-string soprano frankendolele, because I was worried that adding four tuners would make it neck heavy. I'm also one of those weirdos who prefers inline tuners to 2+2.
 
I think you are talking about friction tuners?

Correct, my mistake. I prefer tuners with gears, this Fluke does not have them. I'm not sure it will be worth it to change to geared tuners, and after playing it today, I'm not crazy about the thick neck, thumb is uncomfortable. I may end up selling it.


9 tenor cutaway ukes, 5 acoustic bass ukes, 11 solid body bass ukes, 8 mini electric bass guitars (Total: 33)

• Donate to The Ukulele Kids Club, they provide ukuleles to children's hospital music therapy programs. www.theukc.org
• Member The CC Strummers www.youtube.com/user/CCStrummers/video
 
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I am so used to geared tuners sticking out on the side that I don't mind them. And I wouldnt want to miss out on the advantages of gears.

I like the look of a slotted headstock, but the one I have seem a bit chunky even on my Tenor, so I dont think I would go for that on a smaller ukulele.

As for planetary tuners: they are OK on my fluke, but the are positioned like ears on that one. I might get a uke with planetary tuners and no ears one day, but it is not a high priority.

I voted don't care.
 
At first I thought I liked ears, but then I finally saw a slotted headstock in person and it was like :drool: so beautiful...
 
FWIW, my Magic Luke Flea w/ friction tuners holds it's tuning better than almost all my other ukes... which is even more remarkable considering it's the one that gets tucked in behind & works its way down the couch cushion the most.
I'd only consider Pegheds on an MF if I were buying one from HMS...

(and I really want this one... to put in the Westie...)

Other than MF, I prefer a plain, closed headstock, no ears.

Correct, my mistake. I prefer tuners with gears, this Fluke does not have them. I'm not sure it will be worth it to change to geared tuners, and after playing it today, I'm not crazy about the thick neck, thumb is uncomfortable. I may end up selling it.


8 tenor cutaway ukes, 5 acoustic bass ukes, 10 solid body bass ukes, 7 mini electric bass guitars

• Donate to The Ukulele Kids Club, they provide ukuleles to children's hospital music therapy programs. www.theukc.org
• Member The CC Strummers www.youtube.com/user/CCStrummers/video
 
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Prefer no ears. Every... time...
 
depends on the uke, but I kind of like them on the back and I LOVE my slothead Kala cedar top. I think it's beautiful!
 
Can't say I'm a big fan of friction tuners. My Pono has good ones on there supposedly but I have had to adjust them quite a bit and the 1-1 turn ratio makes it hard to tune properly. They look great though. I may try the planetary tuners at some point. Regular geared tuners are okay with me too and much easier to do precise tuning.
 
No ears for me. I like Gotoh UPTs the best and am fine with Pegheds or friction tuners too. Slotted headstocks are so pretty, but for some reason harder for me to restring.
 
Doesn't matter to me as long as they work well. Though, the more precise the better.
 
I think I've finally concluded that good old geared tuners suit me best. I like the idea of being able to turn the buttons a fair ways before the pitch of the note changes substantially, and as a result, I get a sense of confidence that I'll be able to fine-tune things quickly and precisely. So for me it's one less thing to worry about, although I realize that tons of people use and enjoy friction tuners. As for the "ears" issue, well, honestly I don't see anything inherently undesirable about them, and they don't bother me at all.
 
Don‘t care...

...as I‘m fine with most tuners, as long as they work fine. However, I notice I have a liking for the look of a ukukele headstock without ears, but I would never hesitate to buy uke I like because of them.
However, I had the geared tuners replaced by friction tuners on my Koaloha soprano with a tenor neck (KSM-T2). But that was not so much for look, but rather because of the huge weight of the closed geard tuners. The standard Koaloha closed tuners that you can find on any tenor neck were way too heavy for the small soprano body. So a friend replaced them wth good Grover friction tuners. The uke is much better balanced now.

On the other hand, I had the standard friction tuners on my favourite Brüko, a longneck soprano, with Gotoh UPTs.

So, as I said, in the end, it doesn‘t matter to me. As long as they work and the uke is fine.
 
While I like the appearance of planetary tuners, the guitar style tuners always seem to work better. I have Planetary tuners on all of my banjos, but I notice that three of the banjo players I really admire; Arnie Naimen, Chris Coole and the late Pete Seeger, all use(d) guitar type tuners on their banjos.
 
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