<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"></head><body>Ron<div>Yet, in spite of all the features that you list as upgrades and employ in our own restoration work, there all still the shining stellar examples of the original design alive today and breathing the Steinway sound....one, a 1924 which is sitting in my living room for sale with an amazing soundboard.</div><div> I agree with your assessments of design weaknesses/anomalies in the original design as well as upgrades that could easily be employed to enhance and improve the brand S. Piano, and yet is the piano in my living room a mistake? No...so perhaps its the rare one in which all the aspects were right and details attended to in 1924 and preserved in the Ca. Climate. And it seems its the details that have gotten lost. </div><div> Can it be improved? Well we all know that to be possible but even so, simply installing a good rib crowned board with adequate bearing produces a sound that is far more focused and less distorted than so many of these current modern factory pianos.</div><div>In my mind its quality control and attention to detail thats missing most.</div><div>Dale</div><div><br><br><br><br><span style="font-size:100%">Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1</span> </div><br>Ron Nossaman <rnossaman@cox.net> wrote:<br>On 8/3/2012 11:10 AM, erwinspiano wrote:<br><br>> Brent is correct about the inherent design being sound but its the<br>> execution of it as a mass produced item that the details have gotten lost.<br><br>I disagree that the basic design is inherently good, and they've just <br>somehow forgotten how to build a piano. The heavy rock maple rim is <br>indeed a fine thing, but beech or any other similarly hard and dense <br>wood would make as fine a rim. But then they cripple the treble with a <br>light spruce belly rail in precisely the area where a hard dense rim <br>would do the most good. Adequately bracing this rim with a good H style <br>bracing rather than the structurally rather pointless "tone collector" <br>which leaves the already too soft and light belly rail virtually <br>unsupported by anything but a little stick that looks for all the world <br>like an afterthought. Small rebuilding shops around the country have <br>demonstrated repeatedly that stiffening and mass loading these <br>under-engineered belly rails with extra bracing and weight makes a <br>significant positive difference. A good bracing system and a heavy maple <br>belly rail should, and could relatively easily be done at any time to <br>the entire production line with minimal trauma to the process and much <br>positive effect. Crowning and stiffening the ribs could also be done <br>relatively easily with minimal disruption to established build flow, and <br>would significantly narrow the now extreme range of variation from one <br>piano to the next without making any more changes to the soundboard <br>assembly. Eliminating the squalling front duplexes would be more <br>traumatic, as it would involve casting pattern changes and an added <br>process of producing and placing counter bearing bars, but those much <br>invoked high level concert techs who waste so much time trying to get <br>the things to quiet down could spend the time savings on trying to <br>figure out how to make the low tenor of the model B sound less like a <br>ruptured duck. Good luck on that one. The rear duplexes aren't <br>particularly problematic, so that's one treasured patent they could keep <br>for the sales staff to point to.<br><br>So these pianos are improvable at the factory level with minimal tooling <br>and production flow changes, just by eliminating the really bad design <br>features and leaving the good stuff. But as long as evangelizing the <br>warts and pretending the problems aren't there works so well even among <br>techs who ought to be able to tell the difference, much less the public, <br>it'll never happen.<br><br>And no, Steinway NY is not the only one, but it does seem to claim the <br>most rabid and numerous disciples/minions willing to deny all faults.<br><br>I've heard some very nice sounding Steinways, but there are plenty of <br>dogs to go around too.<br><br>Ron N<br> </body>