<HTML> <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">Larry wrote: If I had money when I was learning to tune, I would probably be using one of these ET's to pitch raise today.  But I didn't.  I still don't :o)  But now I can pitch raise precisely enough within about 1/2 hour, then fine tune so I can't justify the expense of an ET for pitch raising for myself.  But right now my ET budget is diverted to my gas budget! Larry Beach, RPT Vancouver, Canada Amen brother, just checking the prices on the RCT and SAT.  It'll be a while... Working on a shoestring, Mitch Ruth DeMossville,KY USA </BLOCKQUOTE> Here we go again with the confusion that using undefined acronyms sometimes causes.  Electronic Tuners are usually referred to as Electronic Tuning Devices (ETD) or Visual Tuning Devices (VTD).  The "ET" that you often see written on this List has come to mean Equal Temperament (not Extra Terrestrial). That much having been sorted out, I personally encourage Aural Tuning techniques over the use of ETD's.  After all, just think of how many pianos you would have to tune just to earn enough to pay for one, regardless of which type you choose.  I tuned for some 21 years before I ever bought an SAT II and even then for about 2 years I kept thinking that I could do it "faster, better and cheaper" with my $3.00 tuning fork. Even today, the $1600 price tag for a new SAT III hardly seems worth it since I never use the highly touted FAC program anyway.  While I respect to no end Dr. Sanderson RPT, Robert Scott who created the Tunelab and Dean Reyburn RPT, I particularly cannot imagine lugging around and setting up a lap top computer just to tune a piano. My suggestion is that for those who tune aurally and see an ETD as being too expensive at present, keep on doing what you're doing.  Once you've been at it for another decade or two and you have the money to spend, an ETD can relieve some of the stress of tuning, which I consider to be its greatest benefit.  Once you've built up your business and your skill to the point where there is the customer *demand* that you tune 5 or 6 pianos a day, the ETD will make sense to buy and will be the kind of tool which provides the speed and consistency you will need. Keep it up. Bill Bremmer RPT Madison, Wisconsin</HTML>