David. You can't argue both sides Ric. I am not. It is not me who one the one hand claims difference in terms of response, efficiency, etc etc, and then turn around and argue that the difference between CC and RC & S is not more then any CC and any other CC. You can't cite your one example of hearingan RC&S board at Rochester as being the evidence that they sound altogether different and then argue that no one is drawing conclusions based on one sample. How many have you actually heard? How many different iterations? One that I know of. And it was very different then any other piano sound I've heard. But that one experience is hardly the sole basis for my arguementation that different board construction methods will yield different sound responses. I've been saying this for 7-8 years or so. How many CC boards have you heard that had different sounds? How do you know what to attribute those differences to? While I have no doubt that people can hear the differences between pianos, can you always tell what is responsible for those differences by just listening? Can you hear the thickness of the panel? The grain angle? Where the panel is thinned? The rib scale? The rim construction? The interplay between hammer, scale tension and soundboard design and discern how each of those contributes to the overall sound and to what degree? I know I can't and I've heard a fair number of boards of each type including hybrids, experimented with changes in scale, hammers, rib scale, panel orientation. You include so many side issues to the topic out of the perspective of the discussion that it is of course impossible to answer. Let me turn it around on you. Do you seriously purpose that a specific soundboard design is not an intregral part, a purposeful and planned part of the overall design of quality pianos ? Do you seriously think you can so adequately copy the Sauter sound for example with and RC & S board so that the overall impression left by those that listen and choose that sound now will be the same ? I have heard this claim before... and I've heard it discounted before. And the one thing that keeps lacking in these kinds of claims is the demonstration that it is doable... the actual execution that shows the point to be true... or not. And when this point is raised the answer is always the same... one resorts to "Why should anyone WANT to ?" (copy another sound). Leaving the whole thing unsubstantiated but equally ferverently claimed. Well, when it comes down to it... neither you or I can answer your questions above or the one I just put above. So I go, as no doubt you do, on the information I have at hand and that which I can hunt down and that which I can observe. And I make as educated a guess as I can... which is no more or less then anyone else does. I can say that there are formulas for RC&S boards that produce a sound that is completely within the range of what you would expect from a successful CC board. And I say, as I have said before.... prove it. Really... because if you do... then you catch the entire CC and RC world with its pants down. And you give them a manufacturing method that is cheaper, and easier to produce... and if all the stuff you say below is also true.... a virtual gold mine of predictibility, control, and longevity. So by all means. The one difference is that the RC&S process, in my experience, is much more predictable, controllable in terms of altering the design to suit one's own taste, less likely to produce failures in certain sections of the scale and they appears to be a sound argument for them being much more stable over time. There is no question but that you can produce an RC&S design that some may not like by virtue of the rib scale being either too light or too heavy or not balanced the way one might choose or not a good match for the string scale and/or hammers. But those things are more matters of choice rather than chance. Each board that I build or have built, as the case may be, convinces me more and more that RC&S is the way to go. That doesn't mean that there isn't still much work to be done to explore different variations on the basic design formula. As Ron N said, give me enough money that I don't have to worry about making a living anymore and I'm right there with him doing all the real research and providing real data that will further enlighten us on the subject. Hey... go for it. Please do. Seriously.. I've said this a hundred times to you guys now. If these claims are provable... even closely to provable... then you are offering the industry the most valuable contribution its had in a 100 or so years. David Love davidlovepianos at comcast.net Sincere Cheers RicB
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