>At 11:05 AM -0600 27/3/05, Kent Swafford wrote: > >I don't mind Lesters. Lots of Betsy Ross spinets in this part of the >world. I'd tune a Lester instead of a GA-1 any day of the week. >Really. (How's that for an insult to the GA-1?) > >Kent Hi Kent and all, I'm not familiar with the Betsy Ross over here in Aus. Some have tried to justify the GA-1's poor performance in terms of price point. I don't agree that pianos designed for entry level need to be poorly designed as a means of cost cutting. Some on this list have been bashing away for years about poor scale design. Very often such postings receive protest posts from people who, I suspect, haven't really thought the problem through. The GA-1 (an outstanding example of poor scale design) clearly demonstrates that Yamaha's overall policy is for building status quo smaller instruments, rather than innovative and well designed entry level pianos. The only justification I can think of for putting the break of a short piano at the usual A#26/B27 is visual conformity. While the piano buying fraternity might find the visual layout of a G#34/G35 break to be a little out of the ordinary, a well-laid-out sound board area, with a log string-scale and appropriate straight-side cut-off, based around this crossover would run rings around the A#26/B27 'sawn off' brigade. The process of designing a new work-able short scale takes approximately one hour. So the argument of 'compromised design for price' of these new PSOs just doesn't wash. The KG1 Kawai, and the later RX version, with a higher break (from memory D30/D#31) than the 'equivalent' Yamaha offerings are significantly more musical instruments, to which most of the credit must go to the relatively superior scale design. If Kawai were to take their courage in both hands and go even further up with their break on the RX1, further improvement again would be the result. I just can't understand this obsession in our industry with sticking to 'traditional' scales. After all, most of us have gone beyond using the horse and buggy for everyday transport. Ron O. -- OVERS PIANOS - SYDNEY Grand Piano Manufacturers _______________________ Web http://overspianos.com.au mailto:ron@overspianos.com.au _______________________
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