About the Schimmel triplex, The few Schimmels I have serviced were in the showroom of a New York Dealer. I have no other experience with the instrument, so I will aver that I am not familiar with the new innovation. Therefore I can have no reasonable comment about it other than a conservative guess that the company may be on one verge or another. The one could be a breakthrough into using the duplex scale technology to advance the tone quality of the instrument; the other verge could be that the company recognizes that The Duplex Scale is a valuable characteristic and is endeavoring to gain attention by introducing a new idea without having mastered the old one. This may not be as far out a supposition as one might think because there are pianos out there with apparently superficial duplex scales; designs that incorporate numerous changes in the partial relationship, most of which appear to be out of tune. These observations are made, however, from the point of view that the Duplex Scale is supposed to be in tune with the speaking length, which was CFT Steinway's intention as expressed clearly in his patent. Bottom line about the Schimmel is: what does the duplex scale sound like? Have you tested it? If you have one available I'd be very interested in knowing what the intervals you find are, on at least one contiguous harmonic bridge. Also, if you know of a showroom in NYC where there is a new Schimmel with the Triplex, please inform me and I will make a special trip over there to check it out. Thanks very much for your input. It's all to the good of our acoustic instruments, their players, and the listening public. Dan Franklin, RPT
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