[CAUT] Steinway "sound"

[David Love]

Horace:

Some good points.  I was trying to walk that fine line between throwing out
some general principles without making generalizations.  There are trends
that we can recognize if we look and while generalizations can be dangerous
so can treating every piano as if it's a completely unique entity and we are
really clueless as to why it came out like it did.  

That being said, there are still some "unknown unknowns" (again to quote
that famous piano builder Rumsfeld) that contribute to the outcome of any
one particular piano.  That might just be how all the puzzle parts fit
together and, moreover, which puzzle parts.  

For example, let's take diaphragmizing (one of my favorite areas to be
thinking about these days), the fully diaphragmized panel has a great deal
more flexibility than the one that prior to that was tapered judiciously
behind the bass bridge and around the bent side but was pretty much left
alone on the straight side.  That has its benefits in creating more power
right out of the box but on a compression assembly may have a down side in
that it weakens the part of the assembly that supports crown, the panel, and
the boards change rather quickly, usually not for the better.  Yet it is
interesting to note that some (I can't speak for all) rib crowned builders
don't fully diaphragmize the panel when in fact a full diaphragmization
might be a real benefit in opening up what otherwise (say with a very large
bass cutoff installed) might produce something that lacks enough mobility.
They could do that without the fear of weakening the panel because panel
strength isn't needed to support crown in those assemblies, the ribs are
doing more of the work.  Conceivably you might be able to achieve a very
similar result to a conventional compression board (with partial
diaphragmization) using a rib crowned and supported method that is fully
diaphragmized.  Two different parts of the puzzle that fit together to
produce a very similar outcome.  

Anyway, there may be other combinatorial factors some of which happen by
accident that are very difficult to know about that create outcomes (both
positive and negative) that we have a hard time explaining.  I think that
helps to fuel the debate.    

David Love
www.davidlovepianos.com


-----Original Message-----
From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Horace
Greeley
Sent: Friday, February 18, 2011 11:06 PM
To: caut at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Steinway "sound"


David,

At 04:59 PM 2/18/2011, you wrote:
>Brent:
>
>I'm a bit confused by your post.  The first group I mentioned was the group
>that doesn't hesitate to make all the design changes they want less
>concerned with whether the original tonal signature is maintained.  The
>second group uses design changes in order to insure more predictable
>outcomes but still targets something that sounds as much like the original
>as possible.  The group that tries to do things by the book, as it were,
and
>simply copy the Steinway model, in this case, is not a group I mentioned
>because I don't consider them people involved in "redesign".  It sounds
like
>you are part of that group.   No matter which direction is taken, for the
>sake of argument, I'm assuming quality workmanship.  If the workmanship is
>poor it may not much matter how you approach it.

While I generally agree, I'm not sure that "by 
the book" really applies here.  It's important to 
remember that, for many years (decades) the 
production line was, in effect, a 
laboratory.  That being the case,  much depends 
on when something went through.  There are too 
many variables to generalize too broadly.


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