My experience so far is that the RC&S boards with cutoff and fish etc., are better, but different. By better, I mean more predictable, better success rate, fewer quirky things like killer octaves, dead trebles, unsmooth transitions, thuddy low basses, distortions in the tenor, strange resonances, dead spots. There are some qualities that change and my attempt in all this is to understand why and whether those other intangibles are also controllable. David Love davidlovepianos@comcast.net -----Original Message----- From: pianotech-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org] On Behalf Of Ric Brekne Sent: Saturday, February 04, 2006 4:13 PM To: pianotech Subject: Soundboard Resonces and the Wogram Article Hi David You raise to my mind a very important point which goes to the heart of something I've been harping on for several years now. The resulting sound characteristics are going to be different between boards constructed in the different manners you draft in your last two posts. And who is to say what is better ? Ok... each of us individually certainly have our preferences.. but those in themselves dont amount to a hoot. The only critera in the end that counts (since we are actually out to make money selling pianos)... is what the public ends up deciding it likes.... and for whatever reasons up to this point the buying public has been pretty clear about its choice... funny that false beats gets thrown in as a comparitive when you first come to think of it... because of that study done a while back which clearly points in the direction that most people like the sound of a piano that has slightly unclean unisons over dead clean ones. None of this means (from my part) any criticism for any particular approach to building pianos. Quite the opposite.... its a defence of every builders right and desire to pursue what they think will be successfull for their goals. Cheers RicB David Love writes: I don't think false beats are quite the same thing as an oscillating resonance which seems to take place mostly (if I read the diagram correctly) in the lower frequencies. Clearly there are other reasons to build boards with cutoffs and rib crowned and supported than simply for controlling resonances. Those reasons (which I am inclined to agree with) may very well trump any acoustical differences between the two. I'm really just wondering what those acoustical differences in terms of overall effect might be between a soundboard constructed with the bridge precisely located between the functional inner rim in a uniform shape and one that isn't as it relates to the resonances pictured in those diagrams at various frequencies. Moreover, I'm wondering how those differences might manifest themselves in our experience of listening to the piano. My assumption is that the pattern produced will be more uniform and predictable. But sometimes unpredictability and randomness can be a positive thing. So my question is first, if that's the case, and second, if so, what are we trading for what and is it something that's worth considering? David Love davidlovepianos@comcast.net _______________________________________________ Pianotech list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives
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