I'm puzzled on why the B's from the 70's and 80's are so much worse in the break than the ones from earlier or later days. One of our piano profs has 2 B's in his studio. One from '78 and the other is a '26. No comparison on which is the better piano. Was the scale messed with in the 70's? Best, Paul Ron Overs <sec at overspianos.com.au> Sent by: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org 06/23/2009 07:21 PM Please respond to pianotech at ptg.org To pianotech at ptg.org cc Subject Re: [pianotech] Leveling keys At 4:31 PM -0500 23/6/09, Paul T Williams wrote: So... How did they feature the nastyness in the bass break on B's from the late 70's???? Because they are building them with the same inappropriately low tension at F21, as was a feature of their design of a century ago. Why the hollow restroom sound on that F??? No amount of voicing will fix the problem. The problem will remain systemic until the piano is re-scaled. F21 at 145 cm speaking length with plain wire won't and can't work - that's the problem (the model D has 183 cm at F21, which is shorter than ideal but at least it works). A tenor bridge, from F21 to Bfl 26 inclusive, will iron out the problem. A better solution would be to do a complete new design of the whole piano based on current best practice, instead of relying on best practice from 1890 to 'carry the can'. Nossaman knows, anyone remember his B at Rochester? That's what is needed. One of the current 'design-heads' should be at S&S designing a new range of instruments, while their current 'design' team should be put out to pasture tuning at the local dealership. I tuned a late production New York model B (strange serial number, just the numbers 81) for Simon and Garfunkel last night (last of three concerts here in Sydney). All the usual problems re the break, but the regulation was nothing short of a total disgrace. There was nothing there in the way of hammer alignment or burning angle, and the hammers were way too soft to develop a tonal palate suitable for a performance instrument. Each day the tuning went sharp in the tenor. I haven't seen a late New York B before, but it left me underwhelmed. Ron O. -- OVERS PIANOS - SYDNEY Grand Piano Manufacturers _______________________ Web http://overspianos.com.au mailto:ron at overspianos.com.au _______________________ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20090624/6937404f/attachment.htm>
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