<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> </head> <body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"> Sounds to me like the Ronsen Wurzen II's are very comparable to the Renner Wurzen II's we get here in Europe. At least Davids description fit to a tee.  In response to Doug Woods post I'd like to just say that I for one have no doubt Steinway NY gets the sound they want with the hammers <<as is>> they supply. I adhere to the contention that no matter what you do... lacquered hammers will always produce a significantly different character then needled unlacquered hammers. My personal preference is for the latter.  That said... to each his own.  The comment about S&S catering to the overwhelming majority of pianists in the world is a curious one tho in this context... since apparently a significant if not overwhelming majority of these prefer the Hamburg in most instances.  What that in the end says about hammer voicing preferences I'll leave up to the individual to ponder. As far as Bacon versus Wurzen II.  I have to say that I have run into Wurzens II sets that were very very very soft.  I'm not sure as to the claims that this has so much to do with the felt itself as to the degree of pressure is used in the pressing.  I've yet to see a side by side comparison of these two no doubt fine raw hammer felts ready for pressing to see which is denser from the get go.  I'd wager however that either could be made either too hard to too soft for just about anyones tastes. All this goes back to my origional post on this matter.  Get your own voice and voicing style down pat.  And select the hammers that YOU prefer working with to get it.  It is not IMHO even remotely neccessary to adhere to someone elses idea of what any given piano should sound like.  The window for acceptable voicing is actually quite large... which means for every 10 pianists you wow.... there are at the very least another 10 who will be less then impressed. My take.. :) Cheers RicB <blockquote> I haven't seen a Ronsen Bacon felt hammer for a long time but that's what I understand also that the Bacon felt is softer.  My experience with the Wurzen AA felt ones has been very good.  The denser felting doesn't pack like softer hammers, yet if they get bright needles penetrate quite easily.  I don't have an electron microscope so my observations are very unscientific but the Wurzen felt seems just more dense from the felting process rather than the hammer pressing process. >From what I heard of the testing on a new Walter grand, the Bacon felt was better on the very live sounding board assembly.  On most sounding boards that we see the Bacon felt needs some hardener.     Try a set of the Wurzen AAs I think you'll really like them.   dp</blockquote> </body> </html>