Opinions Please

[Ron Nossaman]

>1)In your opinions, do kinked, dented, or bent (depending on what you want
>to call them) wire in the speaking length section near the agraffes and
>V-bar of a piano affect the piano's sound i.e., false beats?

I suppose it's possible, but unlikely. Kinks in strings in the middle to
low tenor can make false beats, but in the capo sections, it's usually
loose bridge pins. Squalls, squeals, shrieks, whistles and odd doink noises
are usually the front duplex.


>2)Does it affect the pianos tunability or the ability to tune good unisons?

The kinks don't, but the noises do, whatever is causing them. 


>3)Would you say that a Steinway D, 5 years old with this condition
>throughout the tenor and lower treble is less desirable than one without the
>condition?

Certainly, but a five year old D without the noises can very easily become
a six year old D with the noises, so it's sort of an indistinct point.
Noisy or not, it has potential and is worth fixing. 

>4)Can this condition be _eliminated_ by any method short of restringing?
>  Thanks for your experienced opinions!
>
>Lance Lafargue, RPT

Possibly. I'd guess that the strings were kinked up by someone attempting
to make noises go away in the first place and trying everything they could
think of in the attempt. By all means give the warranty a try and see if
you can get any help, but I'm afraid the kinked strings will shut that
door, since that's not factory damage, even if that's not the problem. I
wouldn't expect massaging the strings to help because I don't think that's
the source of the false beats. Did you assume the string kinks were causing
the noises or did you try any of the usual non-destructive diagnosis
techniques like pressing against the side of the front bridge pin of a
noisy string while playing the note and seeing if the false beat went away?
Did you try putting a fingertip on the front duplex of a noisy string -
etc? If the problem is loose bridge pins, CAing them will very likely clean
up nearly all the noises in spite of kinks in the string. Try the easy and
likely stuff first, then fall back on the expensive fixes if you don't get
lucky.


Ron N