Rear Duplex Bars on Steinways:

[David Love]

Forgive me if I see some inherent contradictions in these arguments being
presented by Ric B and John H.  Too much wading through the self indulgent
verbosity to get to the point in Robin H.'s post, but I'll presume he had
one.  

If I may illustrate.  Last year I encountered a 1920's Baldwin 9' grand. 
The action had been getting some complaints about weight and was in need of
rebuilding due to general wear.  An analysis of the action put the SBR at
over 7.0 with accompanying original hammers whose weights made it
impossible to achieve the kind of balance needed to satisfy the various
pianists who played on it.  I am confident that were this piano in the
hands of Ric B., that the modifications made and supported by his mentor
Mr. Stanwood, would have been similar to the ones I deemed necessary.  In
fact, judging from previous posts, I would guess that the SBR would have
lowered beyond where I put it, an assist spring incorporated, and a hammer
of even higher strike weight zone been utilized.  Clearly a change in
design from the original, and judging from the way the action was set up, a
change from the original intent.  I don't think Ric B. and other advocates
of status quo positions would argue that a design change was not in order
and would have implemented it without hesitation based on their own
subjective opinion about what feels best.  I have no quarrel with that, by
the way.

Similarly, I recently read several posts by John Hartman demonstrating his
method of stiffening the key sticks on Steinway and Mason Hamlin pianos
reducing the flex for purposes of increasing the tonal range. This while
maintaining the original hammer weights.   Are we sure that the design
intention wasn't to have a certain amount of flex in the key to accompany
the very light hammers that were on the original and that altering that
balance might not betray in a very real way the overall design and intent
as it relates to tone production and feel?   To change the stiffness of the
key sticks while not changing the weight of the hammers might arguably be a
much greater departure from the original than, say, stiffening the key
sticks while increasing the hammer weight.  

To make the argument that design changes in the action are fine while
design changes in the belly to achieve similar improvements are an
egregious abrogation of the the designers intent and an assault of the very
nature of the instrument itself (a paraphrase for purposes of illustration
and effect) seems disingenuous and self serving.  

How do you two reconcile such a contradiction?

David Love
davidlovepianos@earthlink.net