At 12:54 PM 9/8/98 -0500, you wrote: >Jon & others, > > I have no experience with this at all, BUT I have heard that there are >certain acoustic properties of those metal rails which, it is a pretty >safe bet to say, contribute to the Steinway sound. * Sorry Avery, but I doubt it. That sort of assumption without logical reasons puts us back in the land of magic varnish and mystical 'tone' wood where Steinway has secrets mere mortal techs were not meant to know. That is just the sort of thing folks hear and, without nearly enough insistance on objective evidence, accept as truth. Most of what passes for magic is the assumption of the observer that the underlying properties of witnessed phenomenon are beyond his capacity to understand it. They aren't, if you can just turn over the right rock. With all the sheep dip rinsed off, I'll bet it proves to be just a not terribly substantial design that is mystical and exclusive just because it's so different from anything else around. The obvious fact that it is considerably different leads people to assume that it is different because it is better. Once that assumption is made, it's immortal until someone doubts it enough to look at it objectively. By the designer's criteria, being shiny might have made it better. We really don't know what factors went into the choices made in the design. When these pianos first showed up in the marketplace with these action designs, they sounded so much better than everything else that it was automatically assumed that everything about them must be perfect. If you question whether the rails are responsible for any detectable accoustic properties, that ought to be pretty easy to ascertain. Ask someone who has swapped out a Steinway tubular rail action in favor of a more conventional system if the quality of sound was degraded by the process. Del? >I'll bet that Steinway >has done some tests and a standard wooden rail type action _would_ change >the sound of the piano somewhat. * Perhaps they have, but I doubt that it would. Steinway are in the unenviable position of being their own sacred cow. Any substantial change in the basic design of the action would be an admission that something that could have been improved at any time in the last hundred years was not. Given the level of Steinway worship prevalent in both the private sector, and the technical community, why would they be dumb enough to draw unnecessary attention to design problems? They have it made if they just keep quiet and continue to do what they are doing, whether what they are doing is the best of all possible options or not. If they fixed the action, the next thing you know, people would be criticizing their monkey. >Maybe somebody from Steinway could >elaborate on this. > The action rail redesign would change a multitude of things, including >not being able to use any of the "Genuine" Steinway (or >for-Steinway-designed) action parts and eliminating many metal parts in the >action area. * With the differently dimensioned and varyingly functional parts already necessary for actions of different vintages, what's the difference? It's just another complication in a long list of complications, exceptions, anomalies, idiosyncracies, and oddities inherent in the line. At least it would be a change in a positive direction. > Just some thoughts. > >Avery > * Mee too. Ron
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