Ah yes the Zimmerman. Now HERE is a piano I would just love to hear the re-scalers / re-designers comments on. These have to be the deadest sounding instruments I've ever run into. And not just the bass either. The only success I can relate in improving these at all from a field tech perspective was aggressive string leveling and mating, along with as good a regulation as the things allow for. Not a great action by anymeans. Along with the Forster instruments the action flanges always showed signs of some kind of a chemical being used on the bushings, which inevitably lead to sluggish action. The uprights on both used plastic flanges so you couldnt really use the water/alcohol trick. Repinning was the only cure. Eastern Germany piano, still made I believe and there are a few clones I've heard of with similar sound characteristics. They actually held tuning well enough, tho they were plagued with lots of false beats of various sorts which took on a particular acoustical flavour when the overall deadish sound was mixed in. Not my favorite piano by any means... but reasonably popular with the buying public. Cheers RicB Terry writes: I tuned a 1980 Zimmerman microgrand today - my first one. Kind of a = dead less-than-stellar piano. Is Zimmerman kinda like the Kimball of = Germany?
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