<HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>Re: [CAUT] 2 D's revisited.</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY> On 1/13/05 10:44 AM, "Wimblees@aol.com" <= Wimblees@aol.com> wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE>Last year I asked abou= t the lack of sound from one of our D's. (If you recall, Olga Kern didn't li= ke it). I got a lot of good advice, and below are two posts I got from Jeff = and Eric. Since then I have done a lot of work on the new D, but now, it jus= t sits there. Most of the players, including faculty and students, prefer th= e older piano. Personally, I like the sound I get from the new D, but then m= aybe I'm prejudiced. I don't have the thick skin Fred has, so this is becomi= ng a personal challenge.   I wonder if any of you who have a similar situation, (2 concert grands wher= e is one is preferred over the other), if you've tried switching hammers? I = have thought about doing this, but if it has been tried before without much = success, I can save the time doing it. Any advice?   Wim   </BLOCKQUOTE> Hi Wim,     Actually, I take things like that very seriously. B= ut not too personally. My sense is that there is a lot of “herd instin= ct” in any department. At the moment, “everyone” plays our= newer piano, though both are quite well set up, IMO (I guess I like the new= er one a wee bit better, but it’s close to a toss up). There are a cou= ple of folks who are ornery enough to have their own personal opinions, and = choose #2, but everyone else wants “the better one – you know, t= he new one.” That may be what you are experiencing. Word got out that = the new piano isn’t up to snuff, so everybody avoids it. It’s ce= rtainly a line to insert in your psyche to help ease the pain <g>.     Which isn’t to say you shouldn’t contin= ue to explore possibilities with the poor rejected one. I doubt swapping ham= mers would do the trick, but it’s worthwhile experimenting a bit, exch= anging just a few samples and seeing how much difference and of what sort yo= u get. You have to be VERY finicky about alignment to strings to make this a= fair test. If there is a substantial change, and in a positive direction, t= hen you know that hammers are something to focus on. Do it both ways: hammer= s from the newer one into the older as well (I’m talking shank and fla= nge, too, not popping off and re-gluing for this experiment). Regards, Fred Sturm University of New Mexico </BODY> </HTML>