List, A very few of you know about the troubles I've had with my SAT III, app. 1 yr. old. I've already sent it back to be repaired twice (and it was done and returned very quickly, indeed). This past weekend during our International Piano Festival, it locked up totally and no matter what buttons I pushed or in what order, it never came back on again. I tuned for the last recital completely aurally (thankfully I can do that). :-) Anyway, I had a long talk with Jim Coleman and from what we were able to do over the phone to get it working again (at least, temporarily), his thought was that it was locking up in the midi mode and then wouldn't come back on again. For a couple of days, I was able to get it to come on by pressing the midi button first and then the power button. But last Sunday, even that wouldn't work. Hence, the aural tuning. The whole point of this post is to publicly thank Paul Sanderson and Inventronics for being so wonderful to work with and so willing to stand behind their product. To make a long story a little shorter, after talking to Paul on Monday, he sent me a replacement SAT III at no further cost to me! No hesitation, no "hemming and hawing", no nothing. Just "yes, I think we can do that. I should be able to get it to you tomorrow." Well, it took an extra day past that :-) but I now have the replacement and it's working great. A plug for the SAT (and probably for the Cybertuner): Thursday I found out that a competition I had to tune for that happened today, could not have the grand they were renting, delivered to the location until about 8:30 AM for a competition starting around 9 AM. So, I had to go to the store and tune an. almost 7', Seiler grand (the one being rented) which was about 11 cents sharp, and then go to the competition site and tune a 5' or so, Tadashi grand to be used as the second piano for the concertos. Boy, talk about a "Mutt & Jeff" situation. Since there was no alternative, I tuned the piano at the store with the SAT and then went to the church and tuned that one with the same tuning. It actually sounded pretty good, considering the difference between the FAC numbers. (I've tuned that particular piano a couple of times before.( This afternoon, I got a call from one of the teachers who had two students competing (one of whom won) and also who I'd told about the situation, and he was just amazed at how good he pianos sounded together, considering I'd tuned them about 15 miles apart. Plus, it was delivered the day after it had been tuned. So, once again, the SAT III saved by bacon, as they say. In this particular situation, there was no way I could have done it aurally with any semblance of a guarantee they would sound decent together. Wouldn't it be wonderful if all companies gave such good service and stood behind their products like Inventronics does? THANK YOU, PAUL SANDERSON!!!!! I've been an aural tuner for app. 28 years and have done concert work for 18 years or so and I love having this "tuner"! One comment though, for those using an SAT or any other, learn to tune aurally, also!!!!!! If I couldn't have, I'd have been in deep d**d** this past Sunday! Please forgive the "plug" and the length of this post but I'm just very impressed with Paul and Inventronics and wanted to acknowledge them publicly! Avery
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