ETD Displays

[Tony Caught]

Hi Richard,

Whilst I agree with most of what you say, I 'FEEL' that the sound we hear is
often an accumulation of all harmonics that are mixed at different levels,
subject to the hardness of the hammer, stiffness of the sound board,
thickness of the bridge, solidity of the strings anchor points,
etc.,(sometimes referred to as timbre) and though when we listen some of us
hear this accumulation of harmonics and actually perceive a finer sound in
the null that we are tuning to. This finer sound is of course more prevalent
in quality pianos but it does exist in all.

Yes, I use a ETD myself on the odd occasion but I will always choose the ear
as the final answer, not the machines.  You say that the ear can be fooled
and often, maybe so but, if my ear if fooled, I assume that the pianist's
ear will be fooled also and that of all those ears listening to the piano.

The reason I USE not RELY an ETD is because I am 62 and just maybe a little
deaf in the uppppper treble and its a tool that assists me in doing the job
faster.

Anyway machines don't listen to the piano being played.

Regards

Tony Caught ICPTG
Australia
caute@optusnet.com.au
----- Original Message -----
From: Richard Brekne <Richard.Brekne@grieg.uib.no>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Thursday, March 01, 2001 6:54 AM
Subject: Re: ETD Displays


> I think its a misconception to believe that the ear is so superiour to
> the ETD in all things. I would say that the brain / well trained ear
> combination is better equiped to make many subjective decisions that are
> needed to resolve inharmonicity issues that the ETD stumbles on. The ear
> itself, even a well trained one, can get fooled for a variety of reasons
> more often then one might think. This is easy enough to demonstrate.
> Actually it seems like one of the main reasons many good aural tuners
> rely on the ETD is to avoid some of these problems.