Horace: Not going to respond to everything there as some of what I said used your comments for a springboard and weren't necessarily aimed at agreement or disagreement with you particularly, just observations. In short, the varied outcomes on these actions over the past 100 years were less due to design changes than accidents of executions or parts suppliers or came about as a reaction to those varied executions and random unintended changes--I think we agree there. Some things were latched onto as the basis for future changes for one reason or another (not necessarily a good reasons) some were more important some less, some rejected altogether over time. A cottage industry was born perhaps in large part because of the horrendous outcomes produced by 7-9 leads in each key to compensate for poor hammer weight/leverage matching. In spite of that some pianists grew up on those actions and are comfortable with them--might even like them! Still as technicians we have to make a choice, usually, and use our best judgment to put things where we think they ought to be in order to please the greatest number of pianists. We will invariably displease some. At that point we can shoot the pianists (or ourselves) but those aren't good choices so we just accept it--not everyone will be pleased. In spite of that I think we should be cautious about jumping on bandwagons of touchweight design that are themselves the unintended consequence of unintended consequences, perhaps. That's where I was going. So let's get specific. If we look at enough old NY Steinway actions (as we both have) we can see that there was a design intention. That can be characterized as high ratio, light hammer, medium inertia through the key (thus the 3-2-1-0 pattern that is often present). For various reasons it didn't always work out that way but we can see that the intent was there. The law of unintended consequences that we outlined has led things in a very different direction: lower ratio, heavier hammer and, depending on the designer, medium to low levels of inertia through the key lead pattern. The cottage industry that has been born has had a tendency to test the lower limits of that and move in the direction of very low ratio, heavier hammer and very low inertia through the key (some generalizing here, bear with me). But this, as I see it, is a consequence of those other unintended consequences no less and I wonder if that is really a good direction (I don't think it is), where you cross that line, or if we haven't abandoned something that was a pretty good idea but just got muddled in the poor executions. Pianists are obviously important for feedback on these matters but their input can be unreliable in how we make choices. We're not even sure if what they respond to in an action is the same thing that we are concerned with (say, touchweight or low inertia in this case). And because they tend to get used to or adapt to just about anything (that's part of their skill), what they say they like can be very misleading, at least in terms of our ability to make choices on a specific piano that needs to appeal to a broad spectrum of pianists. So my main point was what do we do when given the choice or opportunity to set something up? Which direction do we go in and why? In terms of action set up was there a method to what is now considered the madness of setting up a concert grand with high ratio, low hammer weight, 9.5mm (.375") mm key dip and 48 mm (1 7/8") blow? And is the band wagon we are jumping on of low ratio, high hammer weight 11 mm key dip and 44 mm blow a better set up or worse or does it matter. We can always just pick something safely in the middle, I suppose. But when you factor in the tonal implications of those choices, maybe the middle just means uncommitted. David Love www.davidlovepianos.com -----Original Message----- Subject: Re: [CAUT] Steinway sound >That's assuming that you agree that all the changes that happened were >actually deliberate "design changes". That's not an assumption that I make...quite the opposite, if you recall. <snip> Or...from still another perspective, if we've already shot the designer and moved forward, whom do we shoot when our own designs fail to please? Best. Horace
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