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(14 votes) 
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@ABitRusty
That's pretty interesting. I've mainly heard (YT) this term & read about it in reference to guitars.
'Sweetened' Tunings - The Unofficial Martin Guitar Forum
🤔... don't think it's just a marketing ploy, but I've seen stranger things.
The Concept of 'Sweetened Tunings'
Come to think of it... don't know why I never asked Son-in-law!
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don't think it's just a marketing ploy, but I've seen stranger things
well.. it seems the strobe type tuners are mentioned alot in the sweetened disscusions.. just sayin..
idk.. never heard the term before i purchased my strobe type tuner. but i never picked up a fiddle before 2017 either and theyve been around for how long?? lol..
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I heard and knew about sweetened tunings for some time, but it's definitely not an overly common term. And there are a couple of tuners that do use the term, Peterson (which I highly recommend) uses them.
And even before using the term, I was doing it on guitars, and even have a couple of variations. For example when I tune my electric guitars, they are more like this than equal temperament:
E -9 cents
B -9 cents
G -3 cents
D -1 cent
A +/-0 cents
E +/-0 cents (-4 cents if Drop D)
Even on acoustic without distortion I cannot stand a lot of chords on a guitar, those thirds just grate way too much. The alternative to sweetening the tuning is to sweeten the intonation a bit, but I've never quite gotten that straightened out. That was the point of the the Buzz Feinten system, but even that can be lacking as well.
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This has really been insightful for me.
Seems fretts MUST enter into this equation - and the fact we don't use them on our bowed instruments (even though I suspect Roman Kim uses a scalloped fingerboard). Aren't fretts supposed to help a player with ease of pitch consistency? The downfall of fretts seems (to me) they must make it hard to adjust intonation, unless compensating by 'bending'.
Bending is done on fretted instruments - I don't see it done (intentionally) on our bowed strings. Seems great for a single note/string on guitar - but isn't it more complicated if different amounts of bending, on multiple strings, are needed simultaneously to adjust for good harmony? For this reason, I think I understand the benefit of 'sweetened' tuning - for large chords, especially ones frequently played.
Went back over the Adam Neely's video in Post #4 (Benedetti's Puzzle) - about pitch 'drift' & compromises.
Now, I LOVE choir harmony - but to be honest, I don't give a hoot if the 'A' they end on is off from the 'A' they started with, as long as the harmony sounded good to me.
Don't think I should ever stop learning to hear intervals better, but I also don't want to stop experimenting with adjustments (flattening, sharpening) for expressive purposes.
I'm glad we don't have fretts on Violin, Viola & Cello - but makes learning these instruments so difficult!
🤔... there are some intervals played in Old Time, Cajun & Norwegian genres that really bug me. I used to think it might be from overly bright steel strings (might still be part of it), but seems became a genre-specific dissonance - so, if a small adjustment to the interval(s) bugging me doesn't help, I'll have to see if changing the chord voicing suits me... rather than avoid the music altogether (there's so much to like).
Just brings me back around to 'genres' - becoming acquainted well enough by listening, before learning to play in them.
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This has really been insightful for me.
Seems fretts MUST enter into this equation - and the fact we don't use them on our bowed instruments (even though I suspect Roman Kim uses a scalloped fingerboard). Aren't fretts supposed to help a player with ease of pitch consistency? The downfall of fretts seems (to me) they must make it hard to adjust intonation, unless compensating by 'bending'. ELCBK said
You would think frets are there for the pitch, and while they are somewhat, they don't give instant correct pitch, even considering the other things. They get you close. But I've heard a lot of guitarists not being able to play a well tuned guitar in tune, usually do to slightly bending strings all akimbo or pressing down to hard on the strings.
The frets are more there to make the chords possible, IMO.
Now, it's not as bad as you would think though, and it's really only the thirds that grate, and those are really more noticeable with crunchy overdrive.
Now, as far as frets, yes, those and the scale lengths and etc do go in to the equation. You could play a major third in one position and have it sound great, but different position it could sound bad.
And it's why I never bothered using tuners for years, even when I played live.
I guess it makes sense that you hear about it being a sweetened tuning though, on a violin it is just called 'tuning' due to 'sweetening' the fifths is considered normal.
So maybe we've just been overthinking it. 
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Guitar frets are generally in equal-temperament half steps. That's because the same frets have to be used for all six strings, which are tuned to different notes.
One manufacturer has marketed what it calls "True Temperament" frets, which don't go straight across the fretboard. They use a well temperament scheme that makes chords in the most commonly played guitar keys sound closer to just intonation; of course it also makes some other keys sound more out of tune.
At least one classical guitarist has made a Bach recording using unequal frets tuned in the Kirnberger III well temperament that was commonly used for keyboard instruments in Bach's time.
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