In his November 4 post, Tim Coates said that my post of the same date was interesting, but that I lacked history and information about the process. How is that so? Exactly what is it that I am lacking, Tim? Pursuant to Tim's post of November 5, I looked up the "Scientific Data" on the WAPIN web site. Six spectrum plots were shown, two each of a rebuilt 1929 Steinway D with WAPIN bridge, two of an original 1984 D without the WAPIN, and two of a Kawai concert grand. A linear and a logarithmic plot of the spectrum of note D3 of each piano was shown. I have some questions regarding those plots. 1. Why was only one unison (D3) used for those studies/illustrations? 2. The plots of the 1984 D show what I would consider to be a typical spectrum of a concert grand when a microphone is placed 11 inches above the damper of F#4. However, those of the 1929 with the WAPIN showed an abnormally sharp drop in the amplitude of the second and third partials of the D3 test note. Furthermore, the 17th and 38th partials appear to be of the same amplitude, and there is an increase of what appears to be about 30 dB from partials 33 to 38 (poor detail prevents accurate reading). These are tones that are well above the fundamental of the highest note of the piano. The Fletcher Munson curves (included) show the auditory response of the human ear peaking around 4-kHz. When the Fletcher Munson curves are applied to this spectrum, the subjective result is that overtones of D3 that are well above the highest note on the piano will sound disproportionately loud to the ear. How can this be considered "Too good to be true", as was suggested on the web site? Could this have had anything to do with the voicing of the hammer of that particular unison when that recording was made, or some other anomaly? 3. How does this relate to any change in the tone and/or decay rate of unisons in the fifth octave and above? COMMENT: Then I examined the 1929 Wapinized D in Cincinnati and compared it with the 1984 a few years ago, I did like the 1929 better. The sustaining quality in the upper octaves did sound better to me, and I said so to Michael Wathen at the time. However, I could not determine if the difference were because of the WAPIN, of simply a result of the total rebuilding the piano had been given. I did not notice the peculiar characteristic in note D3 that shows up in the web site spectrums. COMMENT: The questions that some of us have recently reased have been good questions, neither for nor against the WAPIN, but merely asking for more scientifically acceptable data than those that have been presented. I just read Otto Keyes November 5 post. His reference to posts such as mine as "authority of ignorance" and "pigeon pooh" is off limits, does not belong on this list, and I resent it. COMMENT: Michael Wathen's disparaging remarks about the piano industry are not very well received either, nor was I talking about subjective opinions. I was talking about data that are supposed to show that the Wapin either does or does not make a difference - data that in my opinion, show neither, and leave the question wide open. Sincerely, Jim Ellis
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