Feeling the Hammers when playing

[A440A@AOL.COM]

 antares writes:
 
>It's simple Ricky, you just strike a key, you hit the bottom which is the
>front rail punching right? you then clearly feel the energy from the impact
>of the hammer against the string.

   I can't agree with this.  On a pianissimo blow, there are perhaps 12 
milliseconds between the moment the hammer contacts the string and when the 
key hits the bottom its travel.  This is not sufficient time to register the 
"tingling".  On a stronger blow, the moment of keybottom advances, and on a 
Forte blow,  the key is actually on the bottom before the hammer hits the 
string.  So, what you are feeling in the key is not the hammer contact with 
the string but rather, the string vibration resulting from a hammer contact 
that is already a past event.  See 
http://www.speech.kth.se/music/5_lectures/askenflt/keybott.html
 
   As far as the see-saw analogy,  the hardness of the "ground" (front 
punching) affects the impact noise, but I fail to see that it changes the 
manner in which the string oscillates.   And I  don't notice a difference in 
the sound when I change the front rail punchings.  This is something I have 
done in recording studios, where the only judgement of the sound comes from 
the ears in the control room, and the only thing going into the control room 
is the signal from the closely positioned microphones, usually 10 inches 
above the soundboard. 
  In fact, I don't remember anybody mentioning a change in sound, (and these 
are pretty controlled conditions) when I regulate and refelt these actions, 
other than occasionally it is noticed that there isn't as much noise on the 
very softest play. The players notice a huge difference when I refelt, but 
the sound going into the control room doesn't seem to change, and believe you 
me,  those guys are extremely sensitive to changes.  
Regards, 
Ed Foote 
(I am reminded of a thread concerning how much change in tone was to be had 
from moving the back check upwards, but I was unable to find anyone that 
could hear a difference between two differently adjusted keys.)