I haven’t looked at new ones at all.
Kinda assuming since no one really talks about them that maybe they aren’t what they used to be?
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I have a 174 that I like, but it doesn’t have the tuner trouble (loose play) that you’re experiencing, at least not yet. I don’t play it a whole lot though, so it could down the road. I bought it because it wasn’t expensive and I love the red metallic color. It plays ok but it’s not my “go to” bass either. If I do end up upgrading, I’d take the advice of everyone on this forum, but make sure of the dimensions. I’ve had to drill both of the ones I made (Poison Apple and Turquoise Waters) but I have a drill press and an accurate carbon bit that I use.
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I remember Klusons from my acoustic guitar days.
Top luthiers would sometimes use them as replacements on vintage steel-strings.
Upgrade choices for vintage style guitars were either Gotohs or definitely Waverlys. Waverlys kick ass regarding build and tuning reliability. I spec’ed them on a few of my handmade guitars.
Waverlys are a cheaper alternative to Grovers, which are arguably the premier open-back acoustic guitar tuners for vintage-style guitars.
Gotoh also made/makes contemporary-style tuners ideal in fit and finish for modern steel-string acoustics.
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I’m haven’t seen a Kluson bass tuners but have/had a few on my 6 string acoustics. They are great looking and feeling tuners buttery smooth @John_E do you have pictures of the bass tuners on your Rickie?
@mgoldst the vintage style tuners is going to take a few moments to find for 2+2 setup because I don’t think they are reversible. If it’s 4 in-line then Squier replacement are pretty cheap and works surprisingly well. If you like the look a closed gears usually last longer and smoother too.
If you are looking for pure performance it’s very hard to beat the GraphTech Ratio tuner.
I have a 5 string set(not yet installed and a 4 string installed on one of my Fender. At 48:1 ratio for E string even the most OCD pitch police will be happy to see their strobe tuner is at a dead stop. The B string is at 76:1 mind blown! Only one problem, it comes in “everybody else has one” Chrome. No gold no black. 
Their Y keys are just as high performance and comes in at almost half the price of the clovers. This one you can also have them in black.
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Graph Techs are badass, for sure.
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Here are a couple pics of my original black Yamaha rbx200 & the Yamaha rbx200 I pimped with gotoh tuners and bridge, all electronics are original,
Cheers Brian
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Really nice, Brian!
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Not that I play either of them,
I only bought the one I pimped for 1 original tuner for the black one.
I wanted to keep my first bass(the black one) original and tried to buy original tuner directly from Yamaha who advised they no longer have spares due to the age of the bass, so I bought the other one from a pawn shop.
So I pimped the other one with new tuners,bridge etc and had a friend vinyl wrap it with the bassbuzz logo, thanks Josh @JoshFossgreen for the idea:joy:
Cheers Brian
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@mgoldst There is also this discussion in the Gear forum of GraphTech’s Ratio synchronized tuning machine heads.
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Does anyone know what the usual common tuner ratio(s) are?
Does anyone else ever hear slight tuning changes that their Petersen LCD strobe tuner doesn’t see? It seems to me like there is a little wiggle room on dead stop. Maybe there’s an OCD dead stop window size setting I’m missing.
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Most are 18:1 ish Hipshot’s are 20-27:1. Don’t get me wrong you can get in a pitch perfect tune with a 10:1 tuner on a B string but at 76:1 it’s just easier, lol.
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I love that you have a BassBuzz bass!
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I find that some strings (plus tuner and bridge/saddle as a system) tune to a dead stop and some tune to a “wiggle”. Although the tuner is important, string quality/construction and bridge/saddle play a role, at least that’s my story and I am sticking to it.
I have some E strings that seem to ‘pop’ up an octave and right back down every now and again on the Peterson as well.
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Interesting. I’ll tune up to a dead stop and then I find I can turn it slightly more, hear a pitch change and the tuner is still at a dead stop.
This is completely blowing my mind. On my standard tuners I could swear that I have no problem tuning the E string but I have to micro turn to get the G string without going too far. It seems to me the higher strings are more sensitive to turns. Am I imagining that? Maybe it’s because there’s more tension it requires more pressure to get it to start to move?
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Bionic hearing!
We are going to find out. Time for recording antics.
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Yeah totally that’s cool
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I’ve assumed that that is simply poorer tuner sensitivity in that frequency range; the harmonic is dominating the fundamental due to the tuner sensitivity being higher at B1 than B0. I even see this on E1 sometimes.
Completely normal, seen it on many tuners.