That's why I wrote "As I recall." I was uncertain of the exact details anymore. Also, as I recall, they said the partial retrofit was done that way because the structure of the Baldwin didn't allow the agraffes to fit all the way across the bridge. But that may have been my misunderstanding or their miscommunication. They did seem to be saying that the agraffes would eventually be offered for retrofit installation. On a more general note, I would comment that "longer sustain" is not necessarily an unlimited good thing for piano tone. Most piano music was written with the characteristics of piano sound in mind, and does not sound good on a Hammond organ. Malcolm Bilson argues, rather well, that Mozart cannot be played as originally intended on a modern piano, which is not to say he says you should not try, if that's the piano you have. Like Malcolm, everyone should have 6 or 7 pianos to choose from. Ed Sutton ----- Original Message ----- From: "Fred Sturm" <fssturm at unm.edu> To: "College & University Technicians" <caut at ptg.org> Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2011 11:29 PM Subject: Re: [CAUT] Stuart & Son on NPR > On Jan 18, 2011, at 9:20 PM, Ed Sutton wrote: > >> Nothing odd there. As I recall, the top several octaves were retro- >> fitted with phoenix agraffes. One would expect the mass of the agraffe >> to increase impedence on those notes. > > > My memory differs. It was a partial retrofit: went an octave to an octave > and a half and stopped cold, with the remainder left original condition. > The point was to make it easy to hear the difference. The rest of the > display kind of overwhelmed it, with the buzz being more about the carbon > board. > Regards, > Fred Sturm > fssturm at unm.edu > http://www.createculture.org/profile/FredSturm >
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