New, Improved Baldwins

[David Ilvedson]

Ron,

Great to hear and I look forward to tuning one!

David I.

On 22 Jan 2001, at 22:20, Ron Nossaman wrote:

> In the vendor exhibition arena at Arlington, I talked briefly with the
> Baldwin rep who told me about some planned changes in the product
> line. Today I finally got to tune  a new L, so I got a chance to look
> one over. Looks like a rubbed out polyester finish, and has the three
> stick lid prop - as promised. It also has a fancy new scripty and
> colorful soundboard decal, also as promised, as well as a slow fall
> fallboard. What wasn't promised was the fact that the tuning pin holes
> in the plate webbing were drilled out to, near as I could measure, a
> fer sure full 7/16"! There wasn't a single solitary pin in the whole
> piano leaning against the plate. I was quite impressed. Why didn't he
> mention that? The pins were left a bit high (coil bottoms 5mm - 7.5mm
> off the plate), but they were unusually uniform in torque, and not a
> snap through a quarter semitone pitch raise and tuning, though they
> were pretty tight. They were generally quite controllable and
> comfortable. The strings were probably a little high on the hitch pins
> at around 7mm, but the bearing throughout was just right by my
> reckoning, the soundboard crown was positive, and the overall sound of
> the piano was quite presentable if bright. Some general hammer
> softening and voicing could produce a quite nice sounding piano out of
> this one. The regulation is pretty ragged, but the piano has been in
> service since August, so I don't know how it was on delivery. Since I
> don't recall ever seeing a regulation improve under hard use, I assume
> it was better five months ago. If this is step one in the new enhanced
> design and quality control regimen, I certainly approve. I also hope
> they leave the nice marketing enhancements and continue to improve on
> the performance and quality control tolerances. These could easily be
> very nice instruments.
> 
> 
> Ron N
> 


David Ilvedson, RPT