I got my first pedal tuner in 1992. It was the Arion Stage Tuner. Prior to that I had one of those old quartz "change it to e, tune, change it to a, tune..." tuners and then the Sabine ST-1000.
The Arion was awesome for what it was- it was as quick as the Sabine, but it muted and it was a pedal!!! After a short period, you started realizing the shortcomings of the Arion- first it was made cheap- plastic housing, the battery cover constantly fell out, so you'd either always see them with duck tape holding on the cover or the cover missing. Also, you couldn't tune to half steps- it just didn't do that. And then the big thing for me, the display was offset on the pedal- so if it was dark, you'd see the LED and think you're flat, but it was actually sharp.
I actually ended up trading in the comforts of the Stage Tuner (mainly the pedal form and the mute) for a Boss TU-12- which was THE standard tuner back then and I was happy.
When the TU-2 came out (96/97 or so?) it was an astronomical leap from both the TU-12 and the Stage Tuner. I think my first one was $130, and I gave that to a friend, and promptly got another one. Since the TU-2 came out, it's been THE standard for pedal tuners. No, it didn't have the accuracy of other tuners, but it was fairly accurate, rugged and had all the features I would look for in a STAGE tuner. I've had my TU-2 for around 10 years, and I'm still thrilled with it.
I'm really quite surprised to see the almost completely unanimous positive outpouring for the Pitchblack. If I had a complaint about the TU-2, I'd seriously consider checking a Pitchblack out, but I don't have any complaints about it.
I'm glad there's another product that everyone can argue about what is "best."
