<HTML> Del, I agree with what you wrote about hard hammers.  Even so, this situation gains me a lot of income from voicing, and I would rather begin with a hammer too hard than one that is too soft. I've convinced the dealer that I work for that we need to "customize" our grand pianos to the environment that they are sold to (ie. concert hall, home, church).   Thank goodness for the Yamaha voicing tool.  I own two of them.  One has a thinner, shorter needle, the other a longer, thicker needle so that I don't have to keep changing needles as I move up and down the keyboard. Delwin D Fandrich wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE>  <CENTER>WARNING</CENTER> The following is probably a bit longer than most of the "one-liners" will want to wade through. It is also highly opinionated and wanders a bit. Just don't say you weren't warned... -- ddf -------------------------------------------------- robert sadowski wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE>Del,     Could you elaborate on your comment about Steinway now trying to imitate the sound of the others? Have they changed their design philosophy? Thanks, Bob Sadowski -----Original Message----- From: Delwin D Fandrich <pianobuilders@olynet.com> To: pianotech@ptg.org <pianotech@ptg.org> Date: Saturday, January 31, 1998 3:17 AM Subject: Re: piano differences</BLOCKQUOTE> ----------------------------------------------------------------- Bob, No. I don't think that their design philosophy has changed. Certainly the design of their pianos hasn't. At least not discernibly. What has changed is the sound. It has become increasingly bright and hard. At least in the instruments I have heard of late. You can't do to piano hammers what they are doing to their piano hammers without hardening up and "linearizing" the sound. The perception seems to be, these days, (and not just with Steinway) that piano sound should be "bright" and "powerful" at all cost. Well, power and brilliance is available, but you have to start from the inside and work out. If you try to obtain it just from the hammers you simply end up with a hard, linear sound. What is getting lost are the dynamics that make a piano a pianoforte. I still maintain that the industry should get together and change the official name of the instrument to "Forte" since the "Piano" got lost somewhere in the Japanese/Korean invasion. I could understand why Kimball felt it necessary to attempt to emulate that hard, bright sound so typical of the Asian pianos. They were a mass market piano and, obviously, their sales were suffering from the popularity of the Asian imports. (I would speculate that had they concentrated on making their pianos better, rather than  just cheaper, they might have been more successful in their come-back, but that was not to be.) I can even understand why Baldwin wanted desperately for their pianos to sound like Yamaha's during the eighties. But Steinway should remain above that. I don't say this because of any warm, fussy feelings about the piano or the company on my part. I should think it would simply be good business. Historically, Steinway was always the leader in establishing the piano tone standard of the world. And it was a role they handled well through the forties and fifties. Now it seems, they are following. I realize that sales are important. Especially in the case of mass-market pianos. That doesn't mean that companies like Steinway have to bow to the tone standards set by those companies. I should think that the market is there. At least in our experience there are a lot of folks looking for something beyond what the industry is capable of providing in terms of piano tone. (I might add that a lot of these folks already have pianos. Many of them have older Steinways. They would trade up in a heartbeat if there was something available that excited them. Instead they have them rebuilt.) There is room in the world for both. Well, I ramble. But, at least our fire extinguishers are all in good shape... Regards, Del</BLOCKQUOTE>  </HTML>