Newton and list, Newton wrote; >Have you installed a set of "soft" hammers on a Yamaha or >Kawai? Yes we have (to both makes). As many other contributors have mentioned, in their experience the tone quality is considerably improved. We have found this also. But while the dynamic is somewhat improved, the limitations of the sound board system remain. A Yamaha with a resilient hammer set still sounds somewhat tonally compressed (mind you, some of the recent Yamaha OEM hammer sets have been very good - they're not as rock-hard as previously). Two years ago we overhauled a Yamaha C7F (with everything except a sound board). The finished piano sounded considerably cleaner in tone than the standard instrument, but remained somewhat thin and lacking fundamental. The modern Yamaha, with its rigid sound board panel (yet only moderately tall ribs - eg. 23 mm on the C7F) and very light plate, will never produce a full bodied tone. As an aside, several years ago we restrung a Yamaha C3B and a Hamburg Steinway model A at the same time. Both pianos remained in standard spec' except that the duplex and capos were reshaped and the bass scales revised (since it was pre 1995 we did not harden the bars). The down bearing was reset for both pianos (we take an average of 15 hours per piano for this) and both were voiced back to a more or less equivalent level. The Yamaha easily outperformed the Steinway. While this was very interesting, we can't draw too much from one example. I won't be looking at the list again until Wednesday Australian time. Christmas greetings to all. Ron O -- Overs Pianos Sydney Australia ________________________ Web site: http://www.overspianos.com.au Email: mailto:ron@overspianos.com.au ________________________
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