Soundboard Resonces and the Wogram Article

[Farrell]

"...the buying public has been pretty clear about its choice...."

And what have they had to choose from?

Terry Farrell

----- Original Message ----- 
> You raise to my mind a very important point which goes to the heart of 
> something I've been harping on for several years now.  The resulting sound 
> characteristics are going to be different between boards constructed in 
> the different manners you draft in your last two posts.  And who is to say 
> what is better ?  Ok... each of us individually certainly have our 
> preferences.. but those in themselves dont amount to a hoot.  The only 
> critera in the end that counts (since we are actually out to make money 
> selling pianos)... is what the public ends up deciding it likes.... and 
> for whatever reasons up to this point the buying public has been pretty 
> clear about its choice... funny that false beats gets thrown in as a 
> comparitive when you first come to think of it... because of that study 
> done a while back which clearly points in the direction that most people 
> like the sound of a piano that has slightly unclean unisons over dead 
> clean ones.
>
> None of this means (from my part) any criticism for any particular 
> approach to building pianos.  Quite the opposite.... its a defence of 
> every builders right and desire to pursue what they think will be 
> successfull for their goals.
>
> Cheers
> RicB
>
>
> David Love writes:
>
> I don't think false beats are quite the same thing as an oscillating
> resonance which seems to take place mostly (if I read the diagram 
> correctly)
> in the lower frequencies.  Clearly there are other reasons to build boards
> with cutoffs and rib crowned and supported than simply for controlling
> resonances.  Those reasons (which I am inclined to agree with) may very 
> well
> trump any acoustical differences between the two.  I'm really just 
> wondering
> what those acoustical differences in terms of overall effect might be
> between a soundboard constructed with the bridge precisely located between
> the functional inner rim in a uniform shape and one that isn't as it 
> relates
> to the resonances pictured in those diagrams at various frequencies.
> Moreover, I'm wondering how those differences might manifest themselves in
> our experience of listening to the piano.  My assumption is that the 
> pattern
> produced will be more uniform and predictable.  But sometimes
> unpredictability and randomness can be a positive thing.  So my question 
> is
> first, if that's the case, and second, if so, what are we trading for what
> and is it something that's worth considering?
>
> David Love
> davidlovepianos@comcast.net
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