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Is there a way to determine whether something is slightly off-pitch using technology?
I know how guitarists and violinists tune their instruments themselves, but they ultimately use their musical ear to determine whether their instrument is in tune, don't they? Can this lead to innaccuracies? ie. a tuned violin that sounds fine to most listeners, but that will show up to be 1% (or even less) out of tune to the perfect pitch listener.
Can any technology "measure" the accuracy of the tuning/pitch? (for instruments other than the piano)

Yes. I don't know the exact make/model, but a guitarist friend of mine had a tuner that was accurate down to a cent - there may be more accurate ones than that, but there really isn't any need to get more accurate than that. This was about 5 years ago, I'm sure the technology has gotten better since then.

Actually, here ya go...

http://www.seventhstring.com/tuner/tuner.html

http://www.petersontuners.com/index.cfm?category=1

The fancy ones range from $500-$900. They're accurate within 1/10 of a cent.

If one is playing by oneself, then a few cents shouldn't make that much difference, so whey spend several hundred dollars for a few cents? An old-fashioned pitch pipe or tuning fork should do the trick.

If you are tuning to play with other instruments, the same should apply; all you need is an A440, and even my $29.95 Quartz metronome gives me that.

Regards,

1% of 440 is anywhere from 435.6 to 444.4, which is quite a spread.

The problem in determining whether something is out of tune is that what is in tune depends on a lot of things. For instance, a tuned violin will have its strings tuned to perfect fifths, which are a bit wider than the tempered fifths of a piano.

You can purchase an electronic tuner for less than $40. My son used one when he was taking violin lessons. Some have a meter with a swinging needle that tells you how far off you are from a given pitch (it also displays the name of the nearest key. Some use lights or beeps to tell you when the right pitch has been reached. Most can be calibrated to different standards (e.g., A 440).

It's a good thing I am a pianist and not a violinist because I discovered that I have a poor sense of relative pitch.

I agree with Copake. There are lots of digital tuners out there that don't cost much and that will tell you if you're tuned properly or not. Some will even let you set A at a frequency other than 440. But if you're playing the piano, you certainly can't do anything about a tuning problem in the short run. And if you're accompanying someone, he needs to tune to the piano, not to A 440. I accompany lots of young wind students, and they all have digital tuners. Unless I'm stuck playing a digital piano, which by definition should be right on the nose, I invariably have to remind the student to tune to the piano before starting the performance.