<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; ">Hold on, here, folks. With all due respect to you, Ric---my brother---I just can't agree with you unless you put it way, way up in some future none of us will be able to recognize---like 300 years from now. Maybe.<DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV> There is way, way too much pleasure, thrill, and emotion in the acoustic experience for it to die. You cannot---and I mean, CANNOT---replace the total aural and body experience of being in the near-field sonic bubble of a fantastic piano. </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I have been in some of the finest speaker arrays in the finest studios in the world, listening to A/B comparisons of the best digital reproductions of acoustic piano and actual piano, and there's just no contest. No contest between digital repro and the real piano recoreded, and no contest between the recorded piano and the real thing, standing with your head in the piano while it's being played. </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>That's why the entire pop music business went back acoustic after the massive machine flirtation beginning in the late 70's thru about 1994...machines playing music, trying to emulate acoustic sounds, sound and feel like shit to your body, to something deep in you. </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>As machines rise and equal our linear intelligence, in 20-25 years, and the carbon-silicon relationship becomes infinitely more complex, I believe our ears, our whole beings, will crave and demand these beautiful acoustic, tactile, woody, body experiences. I believe a reconfigured, flexible acoustic piano industry will thrive for the next 100 years, but that our craft needs to take a huge step up, and lead the entire piano business into an open, transparent, peer-based, respect-based paradigm, where people are told and come to expect the truth about pianos and piano service.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I also believe that predicting a grim, dystopian future is easy to do, but it casts kind of a pall over things; I'd rather, at this time, look for the strengths in our industry, now and up ahead. I'm committed to finding ways to foster the love of listening to and feeling the piano, and I think there's a bunch of indicators that tell me I have company in that.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>That all said, I love the back and forth, Ric, and I'm glad you're thinking in challenging, wide-ranging ways, as always.</DIV><DIV>It's appreciated.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Best,</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>David Andersen</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR><DIV><DIV>On Jan 3, 2007, at 11:14 AM, RicB wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Helvetica">As the electronic piano becomes more and more like its acoustic ancestor the market will realize that they are cheaper, do not need tuning, are portable and can do all kinds of things the acoustic piano cant.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>When that happens all the low end pianos will start to disappear.... and the companies that make them as well.... the knowledge base will be substantially weakened exasperating the situation.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>In the end.... not in my life time certainly... but sooner or later... only a handfull of makers will survive as specialty/nostalgic builders who only put out a few hundred world wide each year.</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 16.0px Helvetica; min-height: 19.0px"><BR></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Helvetica">We are entering the age of virtual reality folks....<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>the industrial revolution is going to look bleak compared to whats in store for us in the comming 100 years. (if we can keep from blowing ourselves to smithereens that is).<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Helvetica">But for all you acoustic lovers out there... and I am one of them... we can all hope I am dead wrong. :)</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 16.0px Helvetica; min-height: 19.0px"><BR></P> </BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR></DIV></BODY></HTML>