Originally Posted by
goldfinch
I think a lot of the analogies where measuring creates a better product are not on point It really is an it depends on what you are doing.
My father tuned pianos with a tuning fork and his ear. His pianos were in tune. I learned to tune a piano from him. Now most all piano tuners tune from digital tuning machine which shows the frequency. It is faster but no better if you trained your ear. So, in this case "measuring" helps.
I played violin. You tuned the A string to a fork or known pitch at 440hz and used your ear to tune the other strings. Most players still tune all but the A using their ear. Perfect 5ths are easy to hear and you can check using harmonics. It isn't going to be more in tune by checking the frequency of the other strings using a machine. However, I understand some beginner violinists do use a digital tuner. I think they are not doing their ears a favor. I also see more and more guitar players tuning with digital tuners. I still only tune one string by frequency and then use the ear for the rest. I am not going to be more in tune by checking my work as my ear and experience gets me where I need to be quickly.
The music tuning was an interesting example; firstly because a (quality) tuning fork is a standard unit with a known uncertainty, much like the class M2 and F1 calibration masses that I use to check my balances. On the other hand it's quite different from spoke adjustment because the frequencies involved with tuning a piano match with distinct harmonics.(that's the whole point, right)
Meanwhile every wheel out there has a different combination of spoke length, gage, lacing and rim properties which would create a different target frequency for each combination and little if any distinct harmonic, and a mechanic let alone a home mechanic generally puts tone recognition pretty low down the list on his resume (not because it's a bad thing but mechanics have a huge list of priorities that come before tone) unlike a specialist musical instrument tuner.
Though for factory production of hundreds of identical new wheels there is a company that uses a digital tone meter on it's building machine, I think it's Easton but their site is down now so I can't check.