I agree. I think there really should be little doubt that different levels of hammer mass will necessitate a significantly different response picture as seen from the pianists perspective. And I hold to the position that no amount of creative voicing can really compensate for this. The "S" I just did was a perfect example... and the excercise touches a quite a bit the point that Jeff Tanner made about authenticity and the discussion that followed as well as this tangent to the thread. That S had hammers that were on a 3/4 light SW curve... a bit up and down at that. Key leading was actually all over the place and it was clear that someone had altered the original factory key leading at some point. The move to a Top medium curve is a large one... but worked within reasonable parameters. FW's were at what Stanwood refers to as Maximum recommendeds, but it is at 38 grams BW. After initial voicing and no filing it was evident the instrument was going to sound wonderful... which prompted my other post on this S. And it turned out really nice indeed. Clear and strong... little or no apparent falseness of any sort... no duplex problems... I was quite surprised really. All this said... the over all response was very different. Much larger amounts of hammer mass are being moved around and it is an easy matter to sense this despite a fairly low BW. Tho the over all voice <<may>> be said in some sense to be comparable to what the old hammers could have produced.. (assuming they had been reshaped and in good condition)... I have no doubt that any pianist who could have been able to do a before would sense two very different instruments soundwise. I'm personally certain that the same basics here apply to the use of what Doug calls the composite hammer vs the non lacquered one. When the pianists touch has to change to achieve any similar particular tonal characteristic for different instrument configurations... then for the pianist... the instruments <<sound different>> Cheers RicB One thing that hasn¹t been mentioned in this discussion is the geometry change, along with (or, more accurately, trailing a while) the hammer mass increase. This difference in hammer weight from early 20th century to 80s and thereafter is immense. This has a great impact on tone color, and, no doubt, on how hammers need to be treated. Best I can figure, the practice of complete soaking of hammers in lacquer began somewhere around the time of the 1984 action ratio change. That fact is suggestive to me. (I¹m not up on differences, if any, in belly thickness and mass and the like that may have accompanied the hammer mass increase. The ³diaphragmatic SB² patent came mid century, and may have increased mass/thickness of the central segments, with tapering around the rim). ..... Regards, Fred Sturm University of New Mexico
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