In the vendor exhibition arena at Arlington, I talked briefly with the Baldwin rep who told me about some planned changes in the product line. Today I finally got to tune a new L, so I got a chance to look one over. Looks like a rubbed out polyester finish, and has the three stick lid prop - as promised. It also has a fancy new scripty and colorful soundboard decal, also as promised, as well as a slow fall fallboard. What wasn't promised was the fact that the tuning pin holes in the plate webbing were drilled out to, near as I could measure, a fer sure full 7/16"! There wasn't a single solitary pin in the whole piano leaning against the plate. I was quite impressed. Why didn't he mention that? The pins were left a bit high (coil bottoms 5mm - 7.5mm off the plate), but they were unusually uniform in torque, and not a snap through a quarter semitone pitch raise and tuning, though they were pretty tight. They were generally quite controllable and comfortable. The strings were probably a little high on the hitch pins at around 7mm, but the bearing throughout was just right by my reckoning, the soundboard crown was positive, and the overall sound of the piano was quite presentable if bright. Some general hammer softening and voicing could produce a quite nice sounding piano out of this one. The regulation is pretty ragged, but the piano has been in service since August, so I don't know how it was on delivery. Since I don't recall ever seeing a regulation improve under hard use, I assume it was better five months ago. If this is step one in the new enhanced design and quality control regimen, I certainly approve. I also hope they leave the nice marketing enhancements and continue to improve on the performance and quality control tolerances. These could easily be very nice instruments. Ron N
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC