La Petitto Pianinno PSO don't you know

[Ted Simmons]

Thanks, Larry.  Your post will help me explain the situation to the store
the lady bought the used LaPetite from.

Ted Simmons

>
>Been there done that.  Gosh Ted, you got yourself quite a pickle there.
>I've had such calls in the past and usually on such a piano as you've
>mentioned.  The piano has a bass string that is shorter than most spinet
>pianos.  That means that the laws of physics are being really torqued out of
>skew.  With such a twisting of unchangeable laws of the planet, you have
>trade offs.  One is lack of bass, so the harmonics are predominant and so
>the fundamental frequency, the one you want to hear, is covered up by all
>the unwanted frequencies.  Hence, the customer says, "It still sounds
>wrong".  Well as a matter of fact, yes it is wrong to try and make a piece
>of wood, 1/4 inch thick or there abouts, and less than 3 feet long in the
>direction that the sound travels through it to vibrate at low frequencies,
>not to mention that the vibration is being generated by a string that
>doesn't have enough mass to excite the board properly even if the soundboard
>could vibrate at that low a frequency efficiently.
>
>All things added up, that's the way it is.  As for the most often to follow
>remark of, "Well it sure didn't sound like that before you tuned it!!",
>that's because the customer wasn't listening that close before it was tuned,
>before the money was spent.
>
>I lost every La Petite customer on my database as soon as I upped my rates
>to just a bit higher than average for this market area.  I turned down a
>PianoDisc installation for a La Petite owner that had a cheaper bid from a
>place in the nation's mid-section.
>
>In my opinion, the La Petite is TOO DANGED SMALL to do the job in the bass.
>Acoustics have their limits, physics has it's limits.  I've seen a Samick of
>virtually the same size side by side with the La Petite and the Samick, with
>it's newer technology had a much better sound for it's size.  The La Petite
>put a working grand in homes that couldn't normally fit, or afford them.  It
>wasn't meant to be a good sounding instrument, just a good looking (from a
>distance) PSO (Piano Shaped Object).
>
>You handle your call the way you wish, but if it were me, I'd stick to my
>guns and insist that the piano is indeed in tune and there's only one thing
>to do, ............... get a shovel.  Sorry, that's the way I feel about
>poorly designed pianos that the engineers don't have to service for the rest
>of their lives.
>
>Lar
>
>                                    Larry Fisher RPT
>   specialist in players, retrofits, and other complicated stuff
>      phone 360-256-2999 or email larryf@pacifier.com
>         http://www.pacifier.com/~larryf/ (revised 10/96)
>           Beau Dahnker pianos work best under water
>