Why do some pianos have the bass bridge connected to the long bridge?

[Ron Nossaman]

> It's weird though that some makers seem to want to have a lot of room
> between the end of the long bridge and the rim. Why else would they use the
> wider than 90 degrees angle of the spine to the belly rail? I think all
> Steinway grands have this, for instance.
> So on one hand they want the bridge to get stiffer, on the other they
> deliberately place it in a more flexible soundboard location.

And this is the first contradictory feature of piano design you've 
seen coming from the era in which these pianos were designed? We've 
learned a few things since then, though (as Del pointed out), they 
haven't necessarily shown up in the product just yet.


  > Could this "killing" of the bass could be deliberate? Perhaps 
some piano
> designer thought that a good bass sound should have more pronounced
> harmonics but less or no fundamental?

There's no way to know for sure what they were thinking. My call is 
that since the bigger pianos tend to be bass heavy anyway, the 
improvement in the low tenor made the detriment to the bass a 
justifiable trade off. I think it was done for the low tenor, and 
the bass became what the bass became as a result

> Another interesting thing is that this connection between the 2 bridges 
> is suspended, it doesn't touch the soundboard.

I'd be curious to find out just how much difference eliminating that 
paper clip parking garage would make in assembly stiffness there.

Ron N