In my opinion this is not the problem, it is the same old is the problem of Compression crowning. Asking soft flat sugar pine ribs to stay flexed for a lifetime is one thing but tight grain Sitka spruce ribs.....Uh uh,negatory. SO no crown...   hmm lets lower the plate & crush it further. It just doesn't work    I have seen many 30-40 year old Japanese pianos with flat sound board with the strings off. In this case there was a fair bit of truly bad technician-ing possibly sprinkled with other questionable decisions & character traits.    I'm baaaack.    Dale <div id=AOLMsgPart_0_5dc65c69-64c0-4ab6-a813-5d958d0810eb style="FONT-SIZE: 12px; MARGIN: 0px; COLOR: #000; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Sans-Serif; BACKGROUND-COLOR: #fff">  > The soundboard is negative crowned. I think: soundboard originlly dried  for Japanese market, in renovation at SAP Poland extrmely dried out, > restrung with to much downbearing and finally collapsed negative, any  other thoughts about why a soundboards becomes negative crowned? > Custommer payed 15.000 EUR for this instrument,    > Should he accept the fact of negativ crown? Will the board get even more > negativ figures in the future? Any experience how negativ crown > influences the sound and why?    </div> <div id='u8CAA2FC339931A4-7BC-65F' class='aol_ad_footer'><HR style="MARGIN-TOP: 10px"><A title="http://toolbar.aol.com/moviefone/download.html?ncid=aolcmp00050000000011" href="http://toolbar.aol.com/moviefone/download.html?ncid=aolcmp00050000000011" target="_blank">Get the Moviefone Toolbar</A>. Showtimes, theaters, movie news, & more! </div>