This is a very interesting explanation. I too believe that at least some of the high-end manufacturers didn't choose to use hockey-stick bridges because they wanted to save on a few extra bass strings. Just look at a pre-war Bechstein piano and you'll see that the attention to detail and workmanship is very good. It is possible that it was thought as a way of better blending the scale transition to bass strings, especially given the ideas regarding the way bridges work, and where they should be placed, which existed at the time. They might have also had reasons related to less developed string winding techniques etc. The ends of the bridges were never Bechstein's strong points in my opinion. Most of their models have some weakness at the break, in the lowest bass or highest treble. But when you play a decent old Bechstein (as opposed to checking individual notes and stuff) you seldom are disturbed by problems at the break. I'm not saying they aren't there, just that they are not obvious during playing. What Bechstein achieved better than most (in their older pianos) is the crystalline singing quality of the tenor and treble range, which is rarely surpassed. And don't forget that it's there where most of the music gets played. I hope that Ron Overs was able to retian that special Bechstein tone in his rebuild. Please keep sending pictures and maybe a recording when the piano is finished. Calin Tantareanu http://calin.haos.ro <http://calin.haos.ro/> -------------------- _____ From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of alan forsyth Sent: marţi, 23 ianuarie 2007 01:22 To: Pianotech List Subject: Re: A tenor bridge conversion ... As to why the manufacturers did it their way, I can only assume that it was to keep the harmonics in line as far down the scale as was possible. No matter how well a scale is designed there will always be a noticeable change in the harmonic content of the sound as soon as you reach the bass crossover point i.e. the change from plain strings to wound strings. AF ... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20070123/73a525a7/attachment.html
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