Hi Ron Your post perfectly describes my own perception of Petrofs... and, I think... the basic reason they have been so very popular items in Europe for years and years. Their basic sound is actually quite ok. Despite a very sloppy action, false beats galore (unbelievable amounts in some examples) in the treble, bass string unisons that just do not work together at all, squisshy tuning pins... bridge pins all over the place (my first attempt at notching and pining came out better then the average Petrof I see).... despite all this and more when reasonably well regulated, voiced and tuned they leave one feeling with a fairly positive impression. I have had a love hate affair with them for as long as I have known about them. I will say this tho... IME unless a Petrof recieves rather frequent TLC from a good tech... they will deteriorate quite quickly performance wise. One other interesting bit on their soundboards.... They taper their SB flitches a bit before gluing them together so that the flitches are less wide in the middle then at their ends. Strange.. .but they have some R&D stuff that clearly supports a performance enhancement in doing so. Its been a few years since I saw that presentation at the Nordic... but I can try and get the details if anyone is interested. I suspect tho.. that because of their reliance on a C&C board type after some years of even a reasonable climate this gets lost in the wash. Cheers RicB After waking to a cold dark house courtesy of last night's local ice storm, I spent a couple of hours + today with the second call on the only Petrof I've serviced. Did an hour and a half of regulation touch up, and voicing down the rock hammers, followed by tuning and further voicing touch up. Altogether on the high side of average, I'd say. One of the complaints presented this trip was the low tenor honk, which some needling and Vise-Grip mass loading indicated could be made tolerable. Next tuning, I'll bring the means and we'll kick brass. I didn't much like the feel of the pinblock, and the bridge pins were already producing false beats, but aside from these standard features (and the near universal rock hammers), I am favorably impressed. I've seen a whole lot of new pianos that were a whole lot worse, which is an endorsement you can build whole ad campaigns on these days. It'll be interesting to follow the deterioration rate of the thing through the years. Ron N
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