The only rationale I can come up with for the short bass and hockey stick tenor is that there is no rationale. These features weren't apparently consciously and intentionally designed by anyone who had a clue what they were doing, at least technically, so it seems to me that they weren't designed at all, but were just copied from others who themselves didn't have a clue what they had done. Alfred Savage didn't seem to me to have been too disoriented back in 1842 when he outlined the problem and it's cause, so why are we still dealing with this same junk all these years and all these advances in technical understanding later? Either I'm not equipped to appreciate the hidden genius behind it, or there have forever been and still are plenty of idiots making piano design decisions out there. Having listened to the way the existing junk sounded, I can't help but wonder why the next manufacturing startup would copy the worst of it instead of some of the fine design ideas of the past. Maybe it's a cost consideration after all. No matter how badly we build this thing, it can't sound any worse than what we copied to produce it, and we don't need to hire engineers or learn anything technical in order to compete in the marketplace. It's a freebie, and we can concentrate our energies on sales technique instead. Whereas, if we tried to build a good piano, we'd be held responsible for making it sound like a good piano, and the required talent, education, and care would be expensive. Or a manufacturer will hire competent engineers, and ignore their suggestions, churning out even more junk with the improved three position lid prop suggested by one of their dealers' salesmen. I don't know. I can't come up with any sane explanation for it other than continued propagation of a deep and lasting ignorance. Sound doesn't matter, as long as it's LOUD. Just make sure the lid has the square footage to accommodate the family photos. But then how can you experience the wonders of the new lid prop sales point and still keep the pictures off the floor? It's a mystery, Ron N
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