Octave Stretch in other Lands

[A440A@AOL.COM]

Greetings, 
Marcel writes:
>The beauty of aural tuning is that you actually listen to the complete
>and complex sound of individual notes and octaves. The ear can make the
actual
>decision of favoring predominent partial to make the most pleasing music.
>With VTD, you actually have to guess what the most predominent and important
>partial of each notes are.

    I would say that the beauty of the VTD is that after you have a perfect
aural tuning, you can record it, and have it anytime you want, with ease.  I
think it is a mistake to let the machine make the tempering and stretch
decisions, but it sure makes getting it back again really easy!! 
    I would add that the shortcomings of the VTD's are seen on the smaller
scales, the machines don't have the ability to make the compromises that the
ear does so easily, but on the big pianos, it is a rare ear that can surpass a
SAT or RCT, (or TuneLab, I think, though I have little experience with it.) 
Regards, 
Ed Foote