The function of the nut as applied to sound

[0zoro]

Is there a consensus as to which materials used in nut construction are better or worse when searching for a warm sound? Is bone, tusq or some other material to be preferred, or avoided? I am obviously at a juncture where as I may have to replace the nut on my guitar and I have no personal opinions or comparative experience with the different materials. Any insight into this minor question is appreciated.
0zoro

[DawgBone]

I don't have any great advice for you. I've had bone, tusq, and plastic. I'd avoid plastic. If it was my axe I'd probably just run bone since it's kind of the standard but I might be coaxed into trying brass if it was available.

[jamesego]

I like natural bone, followed closely by Tusq. Even so, I’m happy to rely on the tech/luthier doing the work for preferences and suggestions.

I have found the important part is getting it fit, shaped, and cut properly.

[omphalopsychos]

Do you play a lot of open chords? If not it doesn’t matter. Bone is traditional.

[Strat-itis]

I've tried Graph Tech Tusq which is a formulation of plastic, regular plastic, corian, graphite, micarta, brass, wood, and bone.

Corian was the warmest I tried. It's one of the options Warmoth offers.
Tusq is good all-round but is tuned for harmonics and midrange.
Bone was the worst I tried. I think it's mythologized as good.

Martin Pre-Shaped Flat Bottom Corian Nut - Sound of Music

[sgosnell]

My primary preferences for nut material are availability, price, hardness, and smoothness. Hardness, for wear resistance, and smoothness, for minimizing strings sticking in the slots. They also need to be somewhat easily worked. Brass is hard, but not easily worked, not easily obtainable in the required sizes. Plastic can be too soft, but the definition of plastic is somewhat flexible, as are some plastics. Ebony is easy to work, but it wears too easily for my taste. Bone, properly processed, is very good. Tusq is reasonably close, and both are easily obtainable in the needed sizes, workable, and durable enough. The Tusq with PTFE incorporated is slippery and tough. I don't find the tone to be very much affected by the material, although brass is said to be somewhat brighter than most. I've never used it, so I can't comment on that.

[pauln]

For uniformity of tone and response, I would think metal for both the nut and frets. I have an enclosed roller nut; each string passes from before the nut to behind onto the head stock by going first over and then under a pair of needle bearing rollers (12 needle bearing in all) using no string trees.
The two rows of six rollers are co-linear; the strings project from the nut with no radius of curvature (like a classical guitar) and gradually adopt the radius of the bridge saddles as one moves up the neck.
It looks like this...

[Oscar67]