Thanks, Larry. Your post will help me explain the situation to the store the lady bought the used LaPetite from. Ted Simmons > >Been there done that. Gosh Ted, you got yourself quite a pickle there. >I've had such calls in the past and usually on such a piano as you've >mentioned. The piano has a bass string that is shorter than most spinet >pianos. That means that the laws of physics are being really torqued out of >skew. With such a twisting of unchangeable laws of the planet, you have >trade offs. One is lack of bass, so the harmonics are predominant and so >the fundamental frequency, the one you want to hear, is covered up by all >the unwanted frequencies. Hence, the customer says, "It still sounds >wrong". Well as a matter of fact, yes it is wrong to try and make a piece >of wood, 1/4 inch thick or there abouts, and less than 3 feet long in the >direction that the sound travels through it to vibrate at low frequencies, >not to mention that the vibration is being generated by a string that >doesn't have enough mass to excite the board properly even if the soundboard >could vibrate at that low a frequency efficiently. > >All things added up, that's the way it is. As for the most often to follow >remark of, "Well it sure didn't sound like that before you tuned it!!", >that's because the customer wasn't listening that close before it was tuned, >before the money was spent. > >I lost every La Petite customer on my database as soon as I upped my rates >to just a bit higher than average for this market area. I turned down a >PianoDisc installation for a La Petite owner that had a cheaper bid from a >place in the nation's mid-section. > >In my opinion, the La Petite is TOO DANGED SMALL to do the job in the bass. >Acoustics have their limits, physics has it's limits. I've seen a Samick of >virtually the same size side by side with the La Petite and the Samick, with >it's newer technology had a much better sound for it's size. The La Petite >put a working grand in homes that couldn't normally fit, or afford them. It >wasn't meant to be a good sounding instrument, just a good looking (from a >distance) PSO (Piano Shaped Object). > >You handle your call the way you wish, but if it were me, I'd stick to my >guns and insist that the piano is indeed in tune and there's only one thing >to do, ............... get a shovel. Sorry, that's the way I feel about >poorly designed pianos that the engineers don't have to service for the rest >of their lives. > >Lar > > Larry Fisher RPT > specialist in players, retrofits, and other complicated stuff > phone 360-256-2999 or email larryf@pacifier.com > http://www.pacifier.com/~larryf/ (revised 10/96) > Beau Dahnker pianos work best under water >
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC