Yo All, (as opposed to y'all) Aside from the fact that I wished most lovely little BRATS would play silent pianos until they're old enough to spit further than I can, I will say that pianos equipped with such devices are a whole new doorway for piano ownership. I've installed a few QuietTimes and have seen a few Silent Series pianos. The difference between the two in the stop rail mechanism is the position of the rail in relation to the hammer. QT is supposed to be positioned as close to the hammer as possible without interferring with it's travel. SS positions theirs some distance from the hammer. Also the pivot point for the rail in QT is about a quarter inch away from the padded part of the rail (when viewed from the end). The pivot point in SS is over an inch away (if memory serves). Add the distance from the hammer along with the pivot's distance from the padded (point of impact) area of the rail and you've got lots of room for "play" or movement created by the shock of the hammer hitting the rail. Or in other words, on impact, the rails move slightly absorbing the impact. SS moves a whole lot more than QT by nature of it's design. To overcome this, Yamaha has increased the let off during SS activation (on grands anyway, I'm not sure of uprights) by way of a "knife" similar to the sostenuto knife on grands. This knife or wedge shaped bar moves into position under the jack tender creating sooner let off via an additional bump near the end of the fly of the jack. QT is installed to stop the hammer at let off or at most, 4mm away from the string. The rail is mounted quite near the hammer so shank bending on impact is not a consideration, and the rail is quite ridgid by nature so the let off is not changed from the in use or out of use positions. I've seen some traffic on the rec.music.makers.piano newsgroup regarding the touch of the SS pianos. What I've read is not favorable towards the product. I've not had the chance to work directly with any SS pianos to see if the change in touch could be reduced, but Yamaha specs call for 10mm (I think) of let off and usually their products are designed in such a way that modifying them is out of the picture. Yamaha enthusiasts claim they can't feel the difference, while a group of people in the newgroup say they can. I played one and wished I had the time and opportunity to work with it to minimize the effect. I like Yamaha products and enjoy working with tech support at the factory, and have found Yamaha products to be well engineered, however the SS pianos I've encountered have fallen short of their usual mark, IN MY OPINION TO WHICH I'M ENTITLED. Lar PS. I love teaching small kids how to be brats. Sipping loudly from a glass, gargling out loud, belching deeply, shooting water betwixt one's teeth, and repeating what some one is saying while they're saying it are just a few of my impromptu classes that I teach, uh free of charge by the way. PARENTS BEWARE!! 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
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