Yamaha Soundboard Wood

[Ron Nossaman]

>I was shocked. With fair consistency, the lower grade Yamy grands, i.e. 
>GH1, etc., had panel pieces with as few as 5 annular rings per inch! It 
>appeared that the ring angle was far from 90 degrees also (but of course 
>difficult to see exactly). Such a piece would have a neighbor with a very 
>high ring density. Colors were all over the place also (not that I think 
>color means a hoot, except for marketing purposes). They had a couple C7s 
>there also. These boards were pure creamy white with very even moderate 
>ring densities. I was not so surprised that they would choose to put nice 
>wood in the nice piano, but rather that they used such a lower grade 
>spruce in their entry-level grands.

You're right. It's a little hard to tell what's there peering through the 
strings at it in the dark. Looking from the top, a 14 ring pre inch (RPI, 
for convenience) with the rings at 45° looks like 10 RPI. The ends of the 
planks being cut at 45° to match the belly bar are similarly deceptive. 
Traditionally, a very big deal has been made of grain density, but like 
everything else, how critical it is depends on other things. Compression 
crowned boards need high density RPI panels to take the load put on them. 
Rib crowned boards don't need high RPI density. What's inadequate for one 
construction type is just what the other can use quite nicely. The vertical 
rings and uniform RPI should be less prone to compression ridges and cracks 
later, but I doubt there's any noticeable acoustic penalty from the not so 
perfect planks.


> >From a resource preservation standpoint, this is likely a very good 
> thing! I suspect upgrading the wood on these little pianos would make 
> little difference to the musical potential of these pianos, and even less 
> to the folks that would buy them.
>
>Terry Farrell

In my opinion, "better" panel wood alone likely wouldn't make any 
noticeable difference in the low end Yamahas. But do you suppose it would 
and does in the high end? I'm not so sure it does (lacking "proof" either 
way), other than folks paying for high end pianos want them to look 
spiffier than the cheaper models.


Ron N