A conical Crescendo punching will focus the tone. Being a firmer punching there is less compression on a hard blow so the dip (after touch) is more even between pp and ff. The straight-sided Crescendo punchings do not have the same tonal focus effect but are an improvement over the standard woven punchings. At the KC Convention I tested these with a few people at hand. The straight-sided punchings improved the tone over the woven punchings and the conical-sided punchings were a tonal improvement over the straight-sided ones. The conical-shape or tapered sides do make a difference. If you turn it upside down the effect is negated. I've displayed this to customer's amazement. Recently, I received a fairly new studio upright in my shop. I noticed that there were voicing issues. When I disassembled it, there were woven conical/tapered f/r punchings. I knew what some of the voicing problem was... some punchings were inverted. I placed all the punchings with the narrow side up, problem solved. They are too firm for some pianos causing noticeable impact sound. On those pianos the pear green punchings work well. As for the 3/4" punchings, they do not offer as much support and can allow the key to rock side to side more easily than the wider ones. I would use these on a spinet or something else of no consequence. -- Regards, Jon Page
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