double-wound strings

[Overs Pianos]

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>At 11:06 AM +1100 12/9/01, Ron Overs wrote:
>
>>Indeed Ron [N], there's nothing like reducing a 1.4 mm typical 
>>lowest note core wire (on say a 185 cm grand) down to 2.25 mm 
>>[typo:  1.25 = mwg 22.5 JD ]

Thanks for correcting the typo. I imagine a 185 cm piano would sound 
pretty ordinary with a 2.25 core.

>>and double covering it, often with more copper mass to further 
>>lower inharmonicity and and improve what I would describe as an 
>>'openness' of tone (on that same 185 cm grand). It will also move 
>>the % break up to improve tuning stability of a bass singles.
>
>>Yes, this sounds very similar to my thoughts on the question as 
>>regards the 6' piano, which is a sort of "transitional size".
>
>. . . When I attended the inaugural concert in Wales for the first 
>Stuart piano in the Western Hemisphere, I was more impressed with 
>the inability of his great long bass to make itself heard in the 
>hall and the general feeling that I was listening to an extremely 
>old Bechstein, than I was by his very airy-fairy pre-concert lecture 
>in which he demonstrated the ability of the piano to sustain and 
>complained that "all the sound in a Steinway goes to the middle", 
>whatever he meant by that.

Wayne obviously hasn't listened to the SD-10 (he played ours some 
years ago, but he must have had his mind on other matters at the 
time), which would leave his creation 'in the shade' when it comes to 
sustain.

>When I questioned him closely about his aims in the design of the 
>bass, he was at a loss to find anything useful to say at all.

I haven't looked at the core/cover ratio of his piano (though the use 
of Stainless wrap in his earlier pianos also struck me as odd - I 
notice that for the later instruments he has retained stainless for 
the bichord wraps, but has reverted to copper for the singles), but 
what did strike me as very odd was his decision to run the bass 
bridge so close to the back of the case that the back scale was 
reduced to around 100 mm, placing the bridge so close to the rim that 
the low bass has little hope of achieving a respectable fundamental 
content. This would seem to be a strange way to layout 185 cm piano, 
let alone a 9'6". No surprise therefore that it has a 'small' bass.

Furthermore JD, your comment that the bass sounded like an old 
Bechstein does not surprise me at all, since the ENs I have seen all 
had the bass bridge just about sitting on the inner rim, just like 
the Stuart.

>   When after the concert I spoke to the pianist and mentioned that 
>from where I sat the bass was very faint,

I've heard this from other sources also.

>  I was told they had had to change the planned program because of 
>the hall's acoustics, which absorbed the bass.

Strange justification indeed !

>   A friend of mine who regularly plays in the hall had not heard about this.

Ron O.
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Website:  http://www.overspianos.com.au
Email:        mailto:ron@overspianos.com.au
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