Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum Wet Sand Casting versus "V-Pro" Casting for Piano Harps

Steinway did not have a foundry for many years. They only recently bought one.

What limitations does V-Pro have?

Some Bostons scales are better than others. I believe a good portion of all piano scale success variability can be explained by the lack of understanding of how longitudinal modes are propagated and coupled; and designing the structure to better control them.

Not all of it of course, but I know of no past or present scale designer who had/has a longitudinal mode behavior model to employ in piano design work

I imagine that the Kawai made UP-132 upright is a more reliable piano than the Steinway K-52 upright given the tuning stability problems that I understand have plagued the K-52, at least the NY ones. I'm not sure about the Hamburg ones. It is difficult to achieve good tone when a piano won't stay in tune. Steinway purportedly has improved the pinblock for the current version, at least that's my understanding.

According to the Piano Buyer, that problem is mostly a thing of the past:
"Technicians have always liked the performance of Steinway verticals, but used to complain that the studio models in particular were among the most difficult pianos to tune and would unexpectedly jump out of tune. In recent years, Steinway has made small design changes to alleviate this problem. The pianos are now mechanically more normal to tune and are stable, but an excess of false beats (tonal irregularities) still make the pianos at times difficult to tune."

Yes, Steinway bought the foundry they had used since 1938 and installed a a new casting plant.

The articles I looked at indicated piano plates are at the top end of V-pro capacity (100-400 lbs). Single mould processes will cast more complex shapes than V-process. This might matter to a plate designer intent on eliminating an unwanted resonance.

Here is an excerpt from an article about the casting plant:

“It was a very tricky decision at the time,” recalls Andrew Horbachevsky, vice president of manufacturing, Steinway & Sons. “With so many of the parts that go into our instruments, we have deep sources of supply, but our sand cast piano plate is so specialized and difficult to make. We couldn’t find any foundries capable of meeting our specifications so we opted to buy O.S. Kelly to protect this key source of supply.”

The treble tone issues of post WW2 Steinway vertical pianos are because the design has no room for error in the height of the V-bar. If it is the slightest bit too low, this results in inadequate string bearing at the V-bar to provide for a solid string termination. Also the lower treble speaking lengths are on the short side and this exacerbates the tendency for false beats to arise.

There are other contributing issues as well but they fall into workmanship/production errors rather than design errors.

Nice to see everyone’s still at it . I still a lot of blah blah blah…. blah blah and no science.

Me, I’ve spent the last couple of days on white sand beaches trying to soak some rays and catch some snapper.

And many choose a Yamaha C7 over a Steinway.

The C7 is perhaps the most famous piano of all time and for sure the most recorded and sought after by music studios. If the C7 had such a fundamental flaw in its design- a vpro plate why do so many of these professionals want to record on it or have one in their studios?

Many people choose Steinways for the name. Nothing wrong with that, but when you take away the status symbol many of the pros would still request for the Yamaha.

We have a proffesional musician who is a member of PW who also thinks the S7X is a great instrument.The S7X is a newer. model I presume? I hope Dave will.not mind me sharing this.


http://forums.musicplayer.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/3094078/re-yamaha-s7x#Post3094078

The C7X is the newer model of the C7. The S7X is a more "premium" version of the C7X with artificially treated rims for a warmer sound. It is a very nice piano. Like the C7, it's a powerful piano. But it's also delicate and beautiful. I'm not sure how it compares to a Steinway C as I haven't often played one. I think the Steinway C is a bit more of a "vanilla" piano sound, whereas the S7X is a bit more in the direction of the bosendorfer sound.

"A piano for the entire piano repertoire"says this musician.

This seems a clearer recording of an SX piano.At least we hear some of this mid treble in this Schumann piece.

Jethro, can you bring some science to the topic? What experience do you have with piano castings?
Or are you pouring some now at the beach?

Anyone at the beach, watching sand castles get washed away by the waves, would realise that making piano frames out of wet sand is a terrible idea.

The text I put in bold does not inspire confidence. They screwed up and the fix did not fully address the issue? It's a $40.8K piano.

Honestly, I think the Boston UP-132 has tone closer to a NY Steinway grand than the Steinway Model K upright, tuning issues aside. I would be happier with any of the top uprights with v-cast plates (Boston UP-132PE, Yamaha YUS-5, Kawai K-500, K-800) than a Steinway Model K, at least the K's I've played, which admittedly does not include the newest rendition. I've played a half a dozen of them, however, and have never been impressed.

I do not like the Steinway K52 either.I have played two of the new pianos.The sustain in the treble was not impressive.Thank goodness because I would never pay that price.🙄 I am not sure what my next piano will be.Perhaps a CX2(that I would be that lucky)

Don't hold your breath. "Scientist" is just one of many Mittyesque flights of fancy.

Perhaps we should conclude this thread by agreeing that Sonepica was right about everything.

See you guys at the next wet sand vs V pro casting thread!

The C7 is only popular in non classical recording venues. It is certainly not the most famous piano unless one is speaking about non classical music. It is rarely used for classical recordings or classical performances. The CFX is quite popular in classical performances and competitions.

I do however agree with your reasoning that if the C7's plate was a fundamental flaw it probably wouldn't be so popular for non classical performances.