RC vs CC again

[Bill Ballard]

At 5:04 PM +0200 10/1/03, Richard Brekne wrote:
>Its hard to keep tempers from flairing enough to really get at the heart
>of this particular bit, and its really an interesting one. Personally I
>have no doubt that Steinways have a good deal of extra projection that I
>find only in a couple other pianos, one of which I know also uses a pure
>CC board.

Ric, and everyone,

I think we're doing very well. The group is much better focused on 
the subject, this time around. Well asked questions, and well 
explained replies. (I also most did get after two people for failure 
to identify the person referred to in remarks, but fortunately I 
didn't need to.)

At 6:38 PM +0200 10/1/03, Richard Brekne wrote:
>I dont think its nearly as much a marketing question as some others will
>have it. I think it boils down to having a sound and quality others
>simply have not been able to reproduce.

Steinway has the lion's share of the concert stages. Thus it is the 
standard, common to all, of what a concert grand instrument should 
be. Other manufacturers who try to climb onto the stage, will fail in 
their effort to better the standard. They will fail simply by 
comparison to Steinway: de facto, there is only one maker who 
represents the best accomplishment of this concert stage standard. 
Other manufacturers are, at the end of the day, different, which 
unfortunately lessons their chances of achieving the standard. Go 
around this a few times and one would be dizzy enough to forget the 
circular logic in this.

Maybe it's a story similar to the large crab of the coast of Japan. 
Many centuries ago Japan had a great naval defeat.  Fishermen would 
find among the crabs they hauled in, those with shells marked with a 
vague image of a human face. The ghosts of the lost sailors, the 
fisher men said. So after several decades tossing these back in, the 
crab was no longer harvested. The fishermen had unwittingly bred a 
unique variety of crabs with that marking on the shell. Hell, Elvis 
was the greatest tenor of all times. I don't who those other three 
tenors they think are.

Maybe as I follow the latest pass at this fundamental subject, there 
would be a difference between the resonance of these two boards 
arising from the difference in their impedance. The CC board is 
stiffer, and would tend to draw out, extend the transfer of energy 
from string to board. The RC boards would be more relaxed, being 
coupled with undeformed ribs. The string's energy would seem to pass 
more easily into the board. Unfortunately, power would seem to lie 
with one impedance matching, and sustain with the other.

Then again, much of the discussion seems to reflect the old "If all 
you had is a hammer, everything...". Some of us by situation are 
giving a good piano what it needs, equipped with a tool bag and many 
years out in the field. Others are installing boards and know what 
works and doesn't in a board. No wonder we see from our own 
successes, what a masterful worker can do. Our opinion of just where 
the improvement waits to be made, happens to coincide with our own 
line of work. Yes, we're miracle workers and our own particular 
specialization in this business is where the miracles happen. Nothing 
wrong with that, just humans being human.

Bill Ballard RPT
NH Chapter, P.T.G.

"The truth is inside you, Don Octavio. I cannot help you find that."
     ...........The mother of a delusional patient to his psychiatrist 
in "Don Juan DeMarco"
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