<HTML>In a message dated 7/9/03= 1:50:23 AM Pacific Daylight Time, mfarrel2@tampabay.rr.com writes: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-= LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">I have a question for techs= that work on new pianos: What is the incidence of an identifiable Killer Oc= tave area on a new piano? Let's say the threshold for its existence will be = with voicing efforts - when you need to "voice the piano down" to blend the = weak area (the Killer Octave) into the rest of the keyboard. Feel free to id= entify fallboard names (or not). And yes, I have an ulterior motive - it has to do with a past technical = presentation at a PTG chapter meeting.</BLOCKQUOTE> Terry, Sorry it's taken so long to respond to this.  I've been on 3 year-o= ld boy-overload lately!  I'm not sure if my information will help at al= l, because it really hasn't much to do with voicing.  The problems I ha= ve in the killer octave in new pianos are related to tuning stability rather= than tone(give them a couple of years, and the tonal weakness becomes more = evident). Whether or not I do a pitch adjustment on a new piano(primarily of Asian= origin, write me back offline and if you really want names), I ALWAYS go th= rough that section twice. As per an e-mail exchange not long ago with Ron N.= , I have watched one spike/string in the tunelab graph drop radically as I p= ull a neigboring string up to pitch.  While this instability is evident= throughout most of the piano, it is markedly greater in the KO section. &nb= sp;I whack these notes pretty  hard before even putting a hammer to the= pins.   I realize this isn't what you were asking for, but I hope it helps a lit= tle. Dave Stahl</HTML>