<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><FONT SIZE=2>There were many good comments made about this. The truth is that no piano will ever be 100% perfect. I have never, in 33 years, ever tuned one to an absolute state of perfection. Certainly, no one who routinely does a 2 pass tuning in 45 minutes as I do can claim the unisons to be perfect.
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<BR>When I do my highest level work, I can spend hours on the tuning and still never quite feel it is perfect but as Kent suggested, when I have done all that I could do in the time I had and step back to listen to it, WOW!! That's where the word "stunning" applies.
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<BR>It might be said that neither temperament, octaves nor unisons can ever be really perfected but in the attempt to so, one arrives at the sound which is really the most beautiful. If unisons really could be made to be absolutely perfect, it might not really be the best sound. I never try to deliberately mistune unisons, however. I always try to get the cleanest, most beatless sound I can whether I am doing an ordinary, routine tuning or the highest level I can possibly achieve.
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<BR>The PTG Tuning Exam's tolerance is 0.9 cents. Any unison found to have more than 0.9 cents difference between any 2 strings of a trichord unison will have points deducted. Basically, this means that any unison must not have a beat in it that is about 1 beat per second or more. A unison that beats once in 2 seconds would probably not have points deducted against it.
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<BR>The Examinee has 30 minutes to tune the unisons from C3-B4. This might seem longer than necessary but it is the rare individual who scores a perfect 100 on unison tuning.
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<BR>As Newton said, unison tuning is the easiest concept for a novice to understand but any veteran technician will tell you that it is the very hardest task to truly master. In my opinion, a technician who can hide a false beat with unison tuning has superior skills. The original author of this thread does seem to have the right ideas.
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<BR>Bill Bremmer RPT
<BR>Madison, Wisconsin
<BR> <A HREF="http://www.billbremmer.com/">Click here: -=w w w . b i l l b r e m m e r . c o m =-</A> </FONT></HTML>