<HTML>In a message dated 9/7/02 9:55:08 PM Central Daylight Time, joegarrett@earthlink.net writes: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">Bremmer, If I wanted to talk about your EBVT, I would have asked! God, can't you give it a rest once in a while? I was inquiring about the two (2) "Broadwoods Best" Temperaments in the "Big Red". To be frank, I could really give a sh** about your EBVT and You! You're getting to be a royal pain in the A** Joe Garrett, RPT, (Oregon) Been There, Didn't Like It, So I'm Here To Stay! [G} </BLOCKQUOTE> Garrett, Then do what David I. says, only listen to Ed Foote (but it won't drive me crazy).  Ed didn't give you an answer to your question, so I will.  As I said in my first post, which *was* an answer to your question, the "Best" tuners of the time, (the late 19th Century), were the ones who were getting the closest to ET.  Now, it does seem to me too that there can only be one "best" but here is the distinction:  there are two different kinds of temperament tuned by tuners who were considered to be among the best. The first is a Victorian style, Well Tempered Tuning while the second is a Quasi Equal Temperament (Quasi means "almost").  I you try to follow the aural tuning instructions for the first, it will be a guessing game. There are only two, odd instances where two intervals are supposed to end up beating equally.  So, the solution is Ed Foote's solution, dial in deviations of a deviation and you'll supposedly get what they did or even more pretentiously, what the composers of the era intended. But with only whole numbered deviations, the inherent inaccuracies of both ETD programs and individual piano scaling, what you'll end up with are different results on each piano.  Good luck getting even those two intervals which are supposed to beat the same to do so. Now, even worse, if you think closer to ET must be the "best", you'll get those famous *imbalances* that Ed Foote was blowing off steam about in his recent post.  I didn't see anyone cussing at him the way you did at me but after all, whatever Ed says must be true and unquestionable, right?  He said there was no precedent in Historical Temperaments for *imbalances* but many of the late 19th Century temperaments do have them.  Ed Foote, in fact recorded the whole Chopin number on his CD in a temperament which had nothing but imbalances:  Reverse Well. Obviously, you failed to get my point.  Ed Foote often recommends this temperament, often as his answer to what I do.  He'll see that some people just can't trust themselves to tune 4 pure 5ths and 4 other intervals which beat exactly the same, at a comfortable rate to estimate and hear, 6 beats per second.  He wants *you* to doubt yourself as a professional piano technician, that *you* NEED an ETD to help you.  He wants you to reject and scoff at a simple, logical and obviously easy to effect bearing plan in favor of spending lots of time at each tuning, dialing in irrational numbers.  Of course, no one would ever make any errors doing this. Ed Foote wants you to tune this way because he doesn't ever want you to really understand what it is you're doing.  It's all mysterious, irrational numbers which seem to never form any kind of pattern.  Oh sure, he'll show you a graph.  The one that seems smooth with regular proportions is best, right?  Ed would have you believe so and it would *seem* logical. Teaching you poor, uneducated masses these principles, he can keep you bowing to him as the guru of the HT's.  Look at the graphs, choose the smooth one that isn't too far off ET and copy the numbers out of the Big Red Book.  Don't read too much of the text, though, because you might learn something he doesn't want you to think about, just copy the numbers and dial them into your ETD.   You'll have one of two reactions from your customers:  WOW!!! or I don't like it, BACK to ET!  Then, of course, you have to be politically correct, like Ed and be able to and *endorse* ET as the *accepted* way to tune.  Never mind any of that rot which I've dug up about many people believing in ET but who can't and never have tuned it and a whole society which has rarely even heard it.   No, no, that just couldn't be. Just direct all your questions to Ed Foote, as David I. says.  He knows, it's always worked for him.  Once he passed that exam, he threw that tuning fork away and has dialed in numbers ever since and never had a problem. I have never used those numbers to try to tune either one of the "Best" Broadwood temperaments, I never will and I do not recommend that to anyone.  Ed Foote recommends it often. You have the choice about what to do and so do I. "Sideways Well":  the pit Ed Foote dug for himself to wallow in the day he knowingly published false data for the EBVT on Pianotech. Bill Bremmer RPT Madison, Wisconsin <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> </HTML>