Steinways / David Andersen

[RicB]

Hi David

Again I find your post, and that of Jon Page most agreeable.  And again 
I'd like to see that we keep this whole board issue out of the 
discussion. For two reasons.  First;  its two loaded with passions, and 
second... there simply are far too many successful boards made in this 
fashion out in the world made by many companies.  Yet the only time we 
hear this line it is directed soley at Steinways boards.  Doenst add up. 

Besides, we have a very good discussion about customer service, prepping 
responsibilties, and some realities about how the way Steinway runs its 
buisness in the US as related to these issues.  If we confine ourselves 
to these issues, we might actually be able to find a way of establishing 
an improved situation between techs and manufacturer in dealing with 
situations where the customer is entitled to warranty coverage.

Since Steinway actually is in a situation where they (at least for the 
present) are forced to rely on dealerships to perform adequate prep 
work... it may very well be in their interests to establish contact with 
a pool of non-aligned (and non-hostile) techs to work as a kind of 
control mechanism.  Both to improve the general quality of finished 
instruments, improve what apparently is vulnerability in customer 
relations, and to identify dealerships that do not live up to their part 
of the <<bargain>> implied in the present manufacturer / dealer 
relationship.

Cheers
RicB



    On Dec 7, 2006, at 7:13 PM, Kent Swafford wrote:
     > What of the soundboards that have forced the term "killer octave"  
     > into our vocabulary?
     > How does one polish the "diamond in the rough" that looks more like  
     > a simple lump of coal?
     > Kent

    Obviously, board and any structure issues are a different story; much  
    rarer, in my experience, than action issues.

    A lot of tonal issues that people might think are board-related are  
    actually mechanics and tone regulation-related.

    If plucking strings in various sections of the piano produces the  
    sound and resonance curve we desire, it's easy to tweak. Relatively.   
    If the pluck test is bad, and the termination points are good, you've  
    got a big problem.

    I haven't seen a New York Steinway since the early '80's that was  
    terrible all around---condemnable.

    The vast majority of the Steinway problems I've seen in my practice  
    for the last 20 or so years have been front-end problems---action and  
    damper. When the action is balanced, regulated and the piano is tuned  
    and voiced properly, a magical transformation takes takes---the piano  
    starts to sing. The client is blown away. We've done this dozens of  
    times on modern Steinway grands. I'd say the ratio of egregious  
    problems in modern Steinways is around 20:1, front end to back end.  
    YMMV.

    David Andersen