On 11/5/07, Tom Servinsky <tompiano at bellsouth.net> wrote: > > Sorry John, I guess I totally miss-understood your point. Sorry! > As far as the foam on the top, that does quiet things down quite a bit. So > much so, the player feels like the piano is sounding from another room. > Here's my take on things: > The one's doing the most complaining are the ones who are doing the > listening, not ones doing the playing. It's the overall volume taking over > the household that bothers most listeners. Thus the foam on the bottom of > the piano really retards the sound coming from that section of the piano. > In > our part of the world, we have a lot of extremely hard floors with no rugs > or carpets under the piano ( marble and stone). The sounds bounces very > quickly off of the bottom and shoots around the rooms in droves. Adding > the > foam will slow that problem down to a crawl. What's interesting is that > the > player can barely notice any difference in sound. > Adding the foam on the top adds another effect as it's diminishes the > sound > to the player. If the piano is being strictly as a player piano, the foam > on > top will help tremendously. However, if the piano is going to be played by > a > pianist they will be shocked with the diminished sound. If the piano is > being used strictly by a pianist, I will opt not to add foam to the top. > There's a psychologically phenomenon that occurs when the piano is being > played by a person, as the piano is expected to be heard. > When the piano is being played by a player mechanism, people have a > tendency > to think the volume of the piano should behave like a stereo receiver. You > should be able to go to a complete, distant, ambient sound of Volume 1. Of > course, that's an impossibility when dealing with the complexities of a > piano. But that's what I have been able to derive from the comments about > volume and pianos. > It comes down to what your end games needs to be. > Tom Servinsky > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "John Formsma" <formsma at gmail.com> > To: "Pianotech List" <pianotech at ptg.org> > Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2007 8:09 PM > Subject: Re: Acoustic foam > > > > On 11/4/07, Tom Servinsky <tompiano at bellsouth.net> wrote: > > > >> There is a big difference between foam mattress material and acoustical > >> baffle foam. Recording studios having been using this material for > years > >> to > >> insulate the interior space against outside noise. Can't say I have > ever > >> seen a recording studio pad the walls with mattress foam. I'm not sure > >> how > >> the acoustical/physical characteristics plays into the egg crate shape, > >> but > >> it does contain sound extremely well. > >> That being said, any material (be it foam, blankets, or anything) is > >> going > >> to aid in retarding sound from the bottom of the piano. The question is > >> how > >> much containment of sound are you hoping for. We've experimented with > >> just > >> about everything and for the extra money, the high grade acoustical > >> baffle > >> foam is well worth the extra cost. > > > > I agree with you, Tom. I was responding to what Israel said about > > using a foam mattress cut to size. That will reduce the sound, but as > > I said, the acoustic foam is denser and would do a better job. > > > > What I was talking about was after the acoustic foam was in place on > > top and bottom. I was wondering if a foam mattress might help *in > > addition* to what was already there. It did make a difference, but not > > significant enough. Sorry if I worded it poorly. > > > > Having done my little experiment on that job, I will use acoustic foam > > in the future if ever I need to reduce the volume. > > > > Someone else before me had put a sheet of fiberglass insulation in > > there. That doesn't work well at all, just in case anyone was > > wondering. <g> > > > > JF > > > Years ago I had a very fussy customer with one of those tiny 4' 5or6" > George Steck grands. He felt it was too loud for the room, it was a huge > room with carpet, heavy brocade drapes, bookcases, plenty of "soft stuff" to > absorb sound but he wanted it quiter still. I arrived one day to tune and he > had had a custom cover made for it, padded with a quilting inside. The outer > cover matched the drapery material and fit from where the top folded back > all the way over the nose and hung a few inches past the rim. It was very > quiet, after I removed it to tune it was still very quiet, I looked > underneath and he had stuffed 2 foam bed pillows between the beams and sound > board! Perhaps I should have said nearly dead, rather than quiet! <grin> Mike -- The way some people find fault, you'd think there was some kind of reward. Michael Magness Magness Piano Service 608-786-4404 www.IFixPianos.com email mike at ifixpianos.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20071105/f72e4512/attachment.html
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