Hi all. I ran into one of these older Steinways, an O variant from 1911, today. The thing had been <<restored>> about 10 years ago. In this case that meant the hammers had been replaced (hung on original shanks), the strings and tuning pins had bee replaced, plate taken off so the soundboard could be sanded down and re-lacquered (no sign of shims anywhere), case refinished with a dull black kind of lacquer, and then reassembled. Balance weight is like 46 grams on average.. but all over the place... no weigh off had been done obviously and too heavy a hammer had been used for the existing key leading. There is perhaps 5 grams on average friction weight, very loose and hard key bushings, damper stop rail full up, checking variance of at least 10 mm, zings and gingles all over the place from buzzing strings, etc etc etc ad absurdum. It was a bear to tune because the restorer left the tuning pins so the bottom of the coils (all precisely three and a half rounds oddly enough) were like 7-8 mm from the plate... you could get a flagpoling pin from just a ff blow if you get my meaning. I could go on but its not the rebuild, or even the condition of the instrument 10 years later that is on my mind here.... its the pianists reaction to being informed of some of these things. Now I was at my absolute diplomatic, charming best mind you... and tho perhaps some of you might squint a bit at that concept I can tell you I can be quite diplomatic at need. The pianist did agree that the sideways slack in the key bushings was a bit irritating but other then that was just plain in love with this thing. It did have a nicely functioning SB, so when she sat down to play a more then very acceptable sound filled the room... I'll give it that. But for this pianist the only thing that mattered was it was a Steinway, and it had be <<rebuilt>> by someone flashing around some form of credentials. You couldn't point out a thing really that needed attention. It was all wonderful and it was Steinway. Ok... so I'm on the other side of the fence then I usually stand on this issue... so I'll qualify my post a bit here. Thing is I just dont see how on earth anyone of us... or even all of us put together has got a hoot'n chance of doing anything about this phenomena. And I'll bet 2 dozen to 1 that it's not so important exactly what name the present piano deity has... it the fact that pianists just need the deity. The reality of that deities condition is in the end not relevant. I'll be the first to hop on anyones frustration wagon as far as that ride will take me. But experience tells me... there aint a damned thing I or anyone else can do to change it. At best... we can truly satisfy a very few open minds who are willing to try anything as long as real quality has its named not just on the fallboard but in every part of the pianos performance. For those few .... just about any well executed approach will work. But for the rest of the worlds <<pianists>>... its just hopeless. Its good (or not) simply depending on the name. And that seems to be a fact I have to live with, and try to make the best of. Cheers RicB
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