About James Grebe's comments: I think James is drawing a little more fire than necessary. But my own observations about dealer "prepping", here in the backwaters of Tucson, is that it is extremely minimal. That could be the experience of some other techs who are talking about all the work they could do on pianos voicingwise after delivery. That is not to say that there aren't any dealers who do excellent prepping. They just aren't operating in my burg. Factory preparation varies from mfr. to mfr., of course, but factory prep is, I believe, superficial, compared to what I would call "custom work." Sometimes I think both the customers and the techs put too much burden on the factory vis-a-vis "voicing." Just consider this scenario: the customer buys a piano after having heard it demonstrated in the showroom and perhaps trying it out personally. When the piano is delivered, the customer is disappointed in the tone quality. The piano sits on a tile floor in a room full of hard reflective surfaces. Back in the showroom even the walls were carpeted, to say nothing of the distractions of such a public environment. It is not amazing that the piano might benefit from additional voicing. Then there are the finer nuances, such as string levelling, etc. I personally like to let this kind of work hang fire until the tuning is more stable after the strings have stretched awhile. I could ramble on, but I just want to make the point that custom tone regulation in the home after delivery should be an expected routine for a quality piano and a discriminating customer. Often the technician can train the customer to appreciate the value of this routine. After all, the customer is not privy to the rather esoteric business of tone regulation. If the tech can show the customer some normal necessities of piano maintenance, it smooths the way for a higher quality care of the piano than might otherwise occur. I'll leave it up to others to fight out how much of this should be the responsibility of the dealer selling the piano. Bob Anderson Tucson, AZ
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