<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en"> <html>   Ron Nossaman wrote: <blockquote TYPE=CITE>  And techs' ideas of what constitutes a viable or dead soundboard are similarly diverse everywhere you go. <a href="https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives"></a> </blockquote> A little off the subject line here, this quote reminded me of something I heard a few weeks back from an eminent harpsichord builder in Northern Europe. Bear in mind the fellow is a piano forte' lover, dislikes the Steinway sound intensly, and in general dislikes the modern piano. His point was that this whole sustain issue is misunderstood from the get go. That is to say that there is no need for nearly the sustain levels modern pianos offer, ... that there is virtually no music written from any time period that requires more then half of this sustain level.  Never heard that argumentation  before. His position was that older instruments of the modern variant sounded better (read mellow) as they lost some of their power and sustain through the years. Just a bit more for the mesh Cheers -- Richard Brekne RPT, N.P.T.F. UiB, Bergen, Norway <A HREF="mailto:rbrekne@broadpark.no">mailto:rbrekne@broadpark.no</A> <A HREF="http://home.broadpark.no/~rbrekne/ricmain.html">http://home.broadpark.no/~rbrekne/ricmain.html</A>  </html>