<HTML> <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">The first tuning with the VT was > > > > > impressive to say the least and the second tuning was stunning! > > > > > > > > Why should there be a discrepancy between the two?</BLOCKQUOTE> I've read most of what has been said about this.  While I'm not saying that this new ETD is not somehow more advanced than previous ones, I tend to side with the aural tuning perspective.  The "stunning" sound that comes from a higher degree of precision can just as easily be achieved aurally.  It's all in whether the person doing the tuning wants to work on that high of a level or not. That is why my tuning was so impressive at the Convention in Providence.  It was worked up until it really and truly was what it was meant to be.  No *offsets* to compensate for *anticipated drop* or anything like that, just pure, rock solid precision.  It can't be done in 45 minutes and from my experience, many people, including those who run the Convention don't want that level of tuning demonstrated because they feel it is somehow threatening and disturbing to the status quo. And I must add that while I believe firmly in the clearest, beatless unisons possible, I do not believe in this long accepted but obviously now obsolete idea that the piano sounds at its very best when the temperament and octaves are all made to be as *even* as possible.  Yes, it's what the Exam Committee has come up with and it's what all the books and courses say and of course it's the basis on which all the scientists who make these tuning devices, synthesizers, electronic keyboards, etc., believe in but it's only because they're all still stuck on the *arbitrary* idea developed in the middle of the 18th Century.  That idea had absolutely *no* foundation in music practice or theory. I don't need a device that tells me what to do, especially if I know that it's wrong to begin with. Bill Bremmer RPT Madison, Wisconsin</HTML>