Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum new strings vs old string

i was considering getting my piano restrung because i was advised to by a piano tuner that could only tune it up to 335 (not A440). ANOTHER guy we had inspect it said that the strings wont break if we go up to 440 and that there is NO difference in the sound of old strings and new strings. these strings are 60 years old and a few are missing. is this true?

A 60 year old piano was designed to be at 440. New treble wire really doesn't sound different than old treble wire. However, new bass strings will most definitely be an improvement in tone.

Are the strings rusty? If not, and if the piano is structurally sound (plate and bridges in good shape, etc.), I see no reason why it couldn't come up to 440.

First of all, I hope the piano is at 435 and not 335.

I would guess that the piano is probably playable at 440. You'll know if the strings start breaking.

In my experience, new strings do make a noticeable improvement in tone -- just in and of themselves. This is most dramatic in the bass section -- especially if you get a high quality custom set of strings. But it is also true in the plain wire sections as well. The old wire crystalizes at the pressure points. That's what usually causes it eventually to break. But even before breaking, the metallic crystalization has a negative impact on tone.

Sometimes you can get a minor improvement in the treble by loosening up the strings and "pulling around" the wire around the hitch pins a bit so that the bearing points of the wire are new.

Hi!

I fear that the relevant words here are that a few strings are missing.

That doesn't happen unless there is a problem and the tuner who suggested leaving at 435 was probably very wise. I pulled an old Bechstein upright from 437 to 440 for a neighbour the other day . . . it didn't want to settle on the first tuning and I was not the first person to have lost a string on that instrument. My godson's parents leant on me to tune their instrument - a lovely sounding Ibach - with a terribly steep angle from the agreffs to the tuning pins, causing an unnecessarily sharp kink in the wire. Strings were already missing from the instrument and a few more went on me, on a standard tuning. With this particular problem it's necessary to let the string down far enough to move past the kink and then pull to tune in one smooth movement. No fine adjustment - you stop the motion of the string and thereafter the extra force necessary to overcome the friction breaks the string.

So listen to your tuner - he knows what he feels when he pulls on those strings . . . The rest of us can only guess

Best wishes

David P

If you are restringing the piano, you will have a very good opportunity to clean up the termination points of the bridges, agraffs, capo, and any other front scale/back scale terminations ...

THAT will make a significant difference.

I think you should get back the ANOTHER guy and just have it tuned properly with new strings where needed. After this the tuner and yourself will reassess if more new strings are really justified. Replacing all bass strings will likely bring improvement but might not be worth the expense for now.