Hi Marcel It strikes me that the whole scope of impact noises is probably one of the most overlooked and underestimated bits of what the overall sound of the instrument ends up being. We have this tendency to focus on the sound the strings make and get all hung up in that. To the point that many find it down right difficult if not impossible to understand how one or another of the many impact noises actually can influence piano tone. But they do... big time. Going to a more rigid shank will of course have a price. I'm not saying you cant make it work... I'm just saying you probably cant just count on it being a good thing without further ado. Cheers RicB I think there has to be some kink of balance. I remember old uprights with cedar shanks in the treble section. When I replaced some of these broken shanks with maple ones, the tone would get ugly. Mind you these hammers were tapered a lot and were very light, but there must be a reason why the cedar shanks produced such a good tone compared with maple ones. There is so much that happens when the hammer hit the strings that we don't know. It's a very complex system and we only can try different things, but going to just a more rigid shank might not solve all our problems. Marcel Carey, RPT Sherbrooke, QC
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