MY ETD IS MADE BY SIEMENS-- IT'S CALLED A HEARING AID

[RON MAY, RPT]

Hi Allen and all

Now maybe an old dog can learn a trick or two. What kid of plugs are you using. I just might give them a shot. I have heard other tuners talk about them but never felt a need. But then, I never felt a need for hearing aids either until I got them.

The big, important thing that I wanted to be impressed on our fellow technicians is they need to get there hearing checked annually and they shouldn't be afraid of the outcome.

Thank you Alan and sorry for the misunderstanding. As I have said, if I were younger and intended to spend more time tuning and especially in the conditions some have mentioned. I would probably be thinking about and ETD. I have a number of good friends who are excellent aural tuners that have bought ETDs and are very excited about them. Who knows, maybe my wife will buy me one for my 70th next year.

Enjoy your incredible business.

Ron May
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Alan Barnard 
  To: Pianotech 
  Sent: Saturday, March 18, 2006 12:30 PM
  Subject: RE: MY ETD IS MADE BY SIEMENS-- IT'S CALLED A HEARING AID



  Wow. We are miscommunication badly here. Let me 'splain.

  I wasn't offended, though perhaps I was a little put off by these words, which still seem (on the face thereof) kind of "challenging."

  To whit:  "I am a 69 year old Aural tuner who sees absolutely no benefit in ever owning Tunelab or whatever. I am a concert tuner and to this day will put my tuning up against any of you. Among my customers are 4 PhD's in piano performance, one master in piano performance, a large number of piano teachers etc.etc.etc. Oh Yeah---I am an rpt."

  If I read an attitude in that which you did not intend, then I heartily apologize. As I said, I wasn't looking for a fight. (Basically I believe in making love, not war. But in the early days I was conflicted in this, so I got married in order to experience both.)

  Your Q: "How do you hear the piano when you have plugs in your ears?"

  My A: Beats me (no pun intended), but it works amazingly. I use them whenever I'm working on a bright (and/or busy, clangy, nasty) treble, especially in a lively acoustic environment. I also use them when ambient noise is a problem, i.e., yesterday while tuning aurally in a small church--they had just varnished some woodwork so they had all the ceiling fans on full throttle and all windows opened. A giant machine was working about 200 ft away on a hillside, stuffing cut trees and limbs (looked like up to about 8 inches in diameter) into a giant chipper/shredder ... oog. In go the plugs. The screeching, whirling, and wailing disappeared (both the machine's and my own) and I was able to hear the gentle roll of happily tempered fifths. 

  As to the Steinway reference, I might mention three points.

  1. A friend of mine tuned Steinway D's for a major symphony orchestra, and many concert artists for more than two decades--using, for the past umptiump years, an Acutuner.

  2. Direct quote from a Steinway master tech (as quoted in a Steinway class at the California State Convention 2005): "Crown shrown! Pianos under tension do not need to exhibit any measurable crown." (I wrote it down when he said it.) Certainly a debatable point.

  3. Since when have techs swallowed the Steinway line without questioning it? I'm NOT trashing S&S or their pianos -- I love 'em (mostly), they are classics -- just their cultivated, traditional, and wholly snooty attitude and their hard-to-understand, stuck-on-old-ideas view toward technology and innovation.

  I hope I was neither "hollering" nor "being upset" with you (or anyone else, for that matter). If it seemed so, I'm sorry.

  You're Q: "There is maybe one thing you ETDers can help me with. Just about every week or two I get a call from someone in the area who has just had their piano tuned and are very unhappy with the extreme last octave in the bass. This isn't just one tuner that I run into.  Invariably the last octave is so far sharp it is dissonant. Any kid with a years lessons would hear it. There is no way any tuner has listened to this. Is there something about ETDs that don't hear that last octave?"

  Answer: Acutuner, Tunelab, Cybertuner, and Verituner will all give you beautiful curves, from A0 to C88. The old Yamaha PT 100's did give a bass that most American ears found a little shallow, so tuners who used them tuned the base aurally (at least I did), but they would not sound as bad as your example, by any means. I suspect your area tuner is using a Peterson or some other older technology or hasn't, otherwise, a clue to what he or she is doing.

  Alan R. Barnard
  Salem, MO


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