The answer to this question is to no small degree forced upon ones perspective of how the soundboard vibrates. If one views soundboard vibration as more or less an independent thing from the bridge itself then ones answer is going to be different then if one sees them as so intregral as to not be seperable. There's lots of things involved here to be sure. I would suggest taking a good look at the mathmatical basis provided by Dr Andersen and putting as much of that to the test as is possible. Sure the mass charactersitics of the agraffes will have a profound affect. That goes without saying. That also (in itself) says zip diddly about the validity of the claims made by Stuart & Sons. Someone mentioned something about a presumed vertical vibrational mode enhancement being automatically something that would simply pump more string energy directly into the soundboard and actually decreasing sustain. I would say that was rather premature stated.... tho I would be delighted to see any science that backs that idea up. In any case... the case at hand is simply .... does the agraffe provide a termination that does indeed cause the vertical vibration mode of the string to be reenforced and does this in turn result in a string that vibrates longer. You dont strictly need a piano to test the hypothesis out. Cheers RicB Yoshi writes: This was what I heard from a piano tuner in Paris who asked Mr. Paulello about it. There may be something lost in translation, but I just assume anything that adds stress to the board inhibits the movement of the board. If you have no downbearing, no mass and no tension sideways, the board moves more freely, doesn't it? (Of course that is not realistic.)
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