Heavy Hammers / High Ratio / Ric

[Ron Nossaman]

> > As pianists we know
> > that beyond ff, many pianos probably don't produce any more sound.  The
> > board seems to reach a point where it simply cannot put out anything more
> > without the tone becoming distorted--it becomes just more noise.
>
>Now I'm getting into an area I've not actually tested, but.... I think the
>distortion heard at this point is coming from a hammer gone out of control.
>As you approach action saturation the motion of the hammer becomes
>increasingly erratic -- it ends up flopping all over the place. This can
>easily be seen using high-speed photography to slow down the hammer's
>motion so it can be studied in slow motion.

The low soundboard impedance killer octave is a very common example of the 
pianist overdriving the soundboard into noisy distortion, pretty much 
regardless of the condition of the hammers and action.

Ron N