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+1 - BDB

If you purchase any new grand today. Play it five hours a day. In ten years the action will need new: hammers, hammer-shanks, key-bushings and attention to dampers, pedals and whippens.

If this same piano has hammers that are made from felt with decent elasticity in it; I can tone-regulate this action and piano for somewhere around the $2,500 level and it will not wear out for thirty years or maybe more played five hours a day.

As added benefits the touch will be faster and allow for more dynamic control, the tone will be more singing and colorful, and the treble will be far less "woody".

If you have to rebuild an action every ten years for serious pianists, they also must endure more frequent "break-in" episodes. Down-time equals increased ownership cost. Plus new parts don't come cheap.

It would be of real value to pianist's if manufacturers would pay attention to the leaders of piano technology by incorporating known and proven protocols to improve the musical utility of pianos. Durability could even become a provable selling point!

The OP was simply asking about "regulation and voicing" for his 10 year old S&S. He didn't ask how it could be souped up, customized, or altered.

BDB is arguing for the use of common sense, rather than a fantasy of spending the maximum amount of money to create a theoretically perfect piano.

Mr. McMorrow, have you played the OP's piano? Do you know what it needs?

Dream on - The piano owner doesn't need to. All he has to do is find a competent piano technician and request a "voicing and requlation" for his piano. Anything else is idle conjecture and not pertinent to the original question. At that point, the work is in the hands of the technician he has hired and your proposals are irrelevant to what he, and his technician, deem to be appropriate.

* Personal insults deleted *

Thank you BB Player.

Piano owners who are fully informed of their options can make a decision on what kind of piano services they desire. I think this forum is the place to describe options. Or is it just a place for posters who want to talk about pianos-but aren't actually responsible for performing services?

Just because a poster here is the loudest and most verbose does not confer expertise.

I am always ready to demonstrate what I advocate. I can give potential clients the names of my clients who have similar pianos that I care for.

I only know of one PW poster who has contacted me privately to "question" my credentials and "motives". Many posters have thanked me for my posts. I do find the "Junior High School Hall Monitor style" of one frequent poster here gauche!

Exactly!

Though a moderator felt the need to censor and delete a posting, it is unfortunate that is no longer available for all to read as an example of truly juvenile behavior.

Marty, you could ask the moderator to reinstate it.

My sarcasm was mild and my employ of a deprecatory sobriquet towards you was as well. You once accused me of calling you a bigot because I pointed out the discriminatory nature of one of your positions. You have never apologized for that excess. I never went running to the "hall monitor" on that. Bigot is a real insult my friend! And I never used the term towards you or any other PW poster! We should be adults and be responsible for our words.

It is your reaction to it that reflects upon you.

You do like to "Officiate" over the forum with an obviously improper sense of entitlement in my opinion and that is what my sarcasm delineated..

I do enjoy most of your posts, but I have every same right to disagree as you do.

Why would I apologize to someone who called me a bigot? I explained to you, in excruciating detail, why my comment wasn't bigotry. Your reaction was nothing more than another of your juvenile attempts to discredit my background, knowledge and experience.

Your replies in this thread are yet further examples.

Marty,
The point is that I never called you a bigot. You claimed that my description of the discriminatory nature of your comment equaled calling you a bigot. I think you know the English language well enough to be fully aware of the distinction between to two.

Pointing out the discriminatory implications of a persons positions does not equal calling them a bigot.

I feel I am owed an apology for your insult. I am insulted you think I called you a bigot when I most definitely did no such thing.

I must say that I have always found Marty's grasp of English to be quite exemplary. I expect that he even knows how to spell 'equalled'.

Also, in your second paragraph, 'persons' is quite wrong for the possessive, you mean 'person's'.

Dear Ed McMorrow, Dear Marty <-> Dear Marty, Dear Ed McMorrow

One good thing of this forum is it gives different points of view from different angles & perspectives, this is very helpful for piano lovers from different horizons with different objectives, budgets…

Therefore the more contradictory or constrast points of views are, the better.

I have one interesting experience to share:

I bought my Grotrian 6f3 new in Paris in 1991. The person who prepped my piano did a special prep: he used a cutter to thin all shanks of the treble section of my brand new Grotrian. He explained the reason in a mystic, transcendental vocabularies above my head that escaped my ears. As a mechanical engineer I worried about the force resistance of thinned shanks.

I then used technicians from 2 other prestigious piano dealers in Paris to tune my piano: Hanlet (exclusive importer of Steinway in France at that time, its technicians serve Steinways of most prestigious names in Paris) and Daniel Magne (exclusive importer of Bosendorfer in France at that time, and piano expert for Opera de Paris, author of a book about piano http://www.amazon.com/Daniel-Magne/e/B001K7G0VK ). I asked them the reason why shanks were thinned by cutter. Technician from Hanlet smiled and said “the person who prepped your piano thinks that he can do better than Grotrian Steinweg”, Daniel Magne shrugged his shoulders and gave no answer.

Nearly 20 years later, I posted this same question on this forum twice. The first time: no answer, the 2nd time Del replied and explained the reason.

My lesson: all “experts” don’t think the same way, don’t have same knowledge, therefore it’s good to know different points of view. And a good answer can come very late.

=> Please don’t restrain your point of view even it goes again the whole world. This kind of Internet forum is the ideal place to speak out so people can learn different things to build their own judgement

Best regards

I agree with you Marty, Your discriminatory remarks were not bigotry. And I never used the term bigot to describe them! You accused me.