Originally Posted by
RubeRad
It seems to me that it must be possible to judge spoke tension by ear, rather than tensiometer
It may be, although the tone varies based on unsupported length (that changes based on the rim, hub, and lacing) and spoke thickness. Making an app for that may be pretty straight forward (you don't get a pure tone although I expect you'd still get a useful peak in the FFT output).
You can get relative tension about as uniform using tone as you can with a Park meter - the last front wheel (Reflex clincher, 32 2.0/1.5 DT Revolutions cross-3) I built before getting mine was +9 and -5% at 120 and 104 kgf with a 110kgf average except at the bend that had me replacing the rim. Doing so is also faster than trying to measure.
With moderate weight box section rims and traditional spoke counts you can also get absolute tension right using the Jobst Brandt method of alternately adding tension and stress relieving until the wheel goes out of true in waves at which point you've reached the rim's elastic limit, reduce tension 1/2 turn, true, and be happy. That doesn't work for deep rims and/or low spoke counts where the spoke bed's fatigue life will be the limiting factor and even in wheels where it works using a tension meter and only stress relieving once is faster and more pleasant.
On a related note, would anybody start a wheel truing (building?) by first setting all spokes (per side) to equal tension (pitch) according to rim spec (say, hypothetically, Mavic Open Sport rear takes A440 on the drive side and E-flat below that NDS), and then removing any residual runout and hop?
Having built wheels and dealt with other peoples' mistakes I think the usual method of starting the nipples at the same thread engagement and dealing with issues as they emerge with mostly uniform tightening is easier since you don't need to go backwards as much on tension.