<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type"> <title></title> </head> <body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"> Hi Jeff I've heard this mentioned as well and have always interpreted it as meaning that in general Yamaha has influenced piano sound in the sense that (all) instruments are voiced brighter... something I dont particularly like myself.  I know of no design change in Steinway that can account for this kind of thing... tho I am most certainly not aware of everything in this world :)... Still  if anyone can point to a change in rib design, soundboard panel specifications, rim construction, scaling or similar that can be said to have been consciously employed by Steinway to move their sound in the direction of Yamahas... well I am sure this would be very interesting to hear about. I find it difficult also to understand how Steinway and Sons could have been more clever in matching hammers to soundboards in the 20's... when this perspective on hammer choice seems to have only recently (within the past 10 or so years) popped up.  If such matching was somehow superior to todays... I guess it must have been rather random luck. For my part, despite whatever may be happening in New York... I do not believe Steinway is coasting.  Nor do I accept the marketing argument for their unprecedented (in any industry in all human history) success.  Their domination says clearly and simply to me that they hit upon a sound that the greatest majority of listeners / pianists... what have you found more to their tastes... all in all... then anything else. We like to think, IMHO, that we know much more about what creates piano sound then we actually do.  We do indeed have in our collective intellect much more factual material then that collective we did a hundred years back... but those same <<we>>'s perhaps have lost as much or more of that intuitive knowledge of piano sound.  Some will have it that magic does not exist in our world.  I say.. in as much and to the degree that magic can be interpreted as that which happens beyond our ability to explain.... there is quite a bit of magic.... for better and/or worse. Heck... I love pianos... what can I say ? Cheers RicB <blockquote> On May 30, 2007, at 2:32 PM, Richard Brekne wrote: > It just would be very interesting to see what such data would  > reveal. It might also shed some light on why the Steinway sound has  > dominated so to theee degree these past 100 + years. Hi Ric, Interesting you make this statement.  I've heard other techs talk as  if Steinway has actually moved more toward the Yamaha sound over the  last couple of decades. Jeff Jeff Tanner, RPT University of South Carolina</blockquote> </body> </html>