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'Evil tempered' tuning is a compromise, of course, but given the reality of it, some compromise is unavoidable (that's what 'temperament' means).

Trevor Gore has a really good treatment of compensation in the books he co-authored with Gerrard Gilet. Basically he walks through all the things that cause the pitch of a string to depart from the desired temperament, and shows how you can compensate for most of them. This doesn't eliminate the compromises of equal temperament, but it keeps you from piling any more problems on. It's worth the cost of admission. One thing he said is really true: once you've heard a guitar that's compensated to play in tune, it's hard to go back.

As for Phil's friend, the 'former pro', there's one in every crowd. I'd be interested to know what he thinks of as an 'in tune' instrument. Very few acoustic instruments of any sort are really 'in tune' on every note (if 'in tune' refers to the theoretical pitches of equal temperament), and some, such as small pianos, are far worse than most decent guitars. It always gives me a chuckle when somebody says that their new whiz-bang guitar gizmo will enable to you play along with a piano: why would I want to be that far off? You could, of course, say that my guitar sounds out of tune as compared with the piano, and since you can't do much to make the piano work better, I'm the one who has to compromise. Does 'pound sand' cover that? And don't get me started on organs.

Go pound sand is a nice way of saying something that can't be said on this forum. And, yeah, IMHO, go pound sand covers it. Your explanation is the perfect example of why I'd tell the guy that. You could probably take an electronic tuner and play around on any acoustic guitar and point to something you think is out. Every builder makes compromises to get intonation where they think it should be. There are probably as many philosophies on what constitutes an in tune or properly intonated instrument as there are guys building them. And per your remarks about the former pro, don't get me started on the differences that constitute in tune for individual players. We could be here a while. "Go pound sand" is a much better response to some know it all, legend in his own mind jerk running around at a guitar festival checking everyone's intonation. I'd tell him to go find someone else to impress.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

Phil, it seems to me that accuracy of fret placement is likely to be the least of your worries. Even if you get the frets exactly where you want them, your (or anyone else's guitar) is still unlikely to play in tune to the equal tempered scale. Even when everything is "right" to normal standards, SS guitars will still have errors of the order of 4-6 cents on the low frets. If you have a responsive guitar with the main resonances in the wrong places the errors can easily be as much as 30 cents on some notes (due to the coupling between resonators [the string and the top] forcing the resonant frequencies to "repel" each other, putting the string out of tune on that fret) and it has absolutely nothing to do with the accuracy of the fret placement, which is usually the least of your worries. Then there's the people wanting to hear Just temperament on an equal temperament instrument; see this thread. So if you are fretting on the accuracy or your intonation, you need to get a "handle" on all that stuff, because just fretting more accurately is not the solution. The solution is placing body resonances in the right places and good nut and saddle compensation. These techniques will have a much greater effect than shifting individual frets +/- a 64th.

I'll also add that not everybody feels the need for perfect intonation. Many people regard the inherent out-of-tunenes of guitars as part of the appeal. However, to repeat the mantra, once you've heard a really well intonated guitar, there is no going back.

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

For anything out-of-the-ordinary, like the multi-scales I have coming up, I draw the template out in Rhino, including any nut compensation, based on the Stewmac fret spacing calculator. I export it as a .dwg, email it to my laser guy in town, pick it up the next day. Perfect. $20 including materials. And I can even put my name on it! Now if only McNeel would roll out Rhino for Mac...
That's the beginnings of a shield my son and I are making in the background...

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Mountain Song Guitars www.mountainsongguitars.com

That's why I buy pre-slotted fretboards.... If one is off - you send it back with a nasty letter and they ship you a replacement....

Slotting charges tend to be quite reasonable....

On the question of "Playing in tune"... My own question to musicians is.....
Is it more important to play in tune with the rest of the group, or for your instrument to be "Perfect" - even if that means you won't be in tune with the group.....

he he he...

In real life - it's usually more important to be in tune with the group.. and everybody tunes to the Piano..... so you just live with it...

Thanks