Fred Sturm wrote: > Okay, maybe I didn't state my query precisely enough. I would call > sharp/round and thin/wide design issues associated with termination, > similar to angle of deflection. Hard/soft is associated with materials > and their treatment, but again a termination issue. Hmm.... well ok... termination issue it is... but a choice of a very hard termination neccessitates a choice of a round /wide termination... or string breakage becomes an issue. This gets into the discussion about string stiffness, flex or bend at the termination point and how this affects inharmonicity. > Plate ring/internal damping has to do with the plate being acoustically > inert - taking as little vibrational energy as possible from the string. > At any rate, all the sources I have heard from who seem to speak with > authority seem to be in agreement on this. Er... grin.. and what are they in aggreement about ? That the above statement is true enough in itself you wont get any argument about me thinks, but I have heard adamant and very contrasting standpoints from a host of people who say they know something about such things. One says V-pro results in a very hard metal, what little info I was able to talk out of casting people seemed to hint in the same direction, but then others say this is only the skin, and still others say its actually less hard then green or sand cast plates. Same kinda argument from the experts goes on about internal damping and plate ring, and about the significance of a tighter more consitant resultant iron. And the same kinda argument goes about the inherent lubricity present and determined by the amount of free carbon in the form of graphites... > And I can't see that the metallurgic differences between v pro and cast iron would > affect acoustical inertness. I cant say that it does or doesnt. I can say that when the V-pro plate first appeared it was accompanied by horrible amounts of weird plate ring and plate participation in the sound. Lots of back enginerring and probably lots of dinking around with the additives to the mix later they started sounding pretty good... and in fact I heard a factory big whig once say that the V-pro plate contributes high end ring as a matter of design,,,, to enhance the highest partials... something he said was new at the time, and much better then what anyone else had thought of. I can also say that V-pro plate pianos are consistantly described by piano techs as having a slightly metallic sound.... not that this is neccesarilly a negative... but you hear this time and time again.. > In which case, as a choice of materials issue, it would boil down to > hardness of termination. And v pro seems quite good from that point of > view, at least in my limited experience. Depends on what you are after. Myself I still remain convinced that a less hard, sharp and thin termination on a low tension scale with mild deflection angels off the capo yields the nicest and most long lasting result. A v pro plate is not the best choice for this configuration as best I have been able to find out. > > Am I missing something here? Grin.... no more then any of the rest of us I think. As Roger says tho... When Yamaha wants to make the absolute best they can... for some reason they choose not to use the V-pro plate, and for some reason they have stopped using tuning pin bushings. Sure would be nice if they put some hard data on the table for us all to read. > Fred Sturm > University of New Mexico Nice choice of subject matter btw Fred... I hope you get lots of interesting replies on this thread. I too am very interested in learning more about this end of things. -- Richard Brekne RPT, N.P.T.F. Bergen, Norway mailto:rbrekne@broadpark.no
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