Stuart Piano

A very interesting design, and website.  I had a very brief chance to play the big Stuart & Sons Concert Grand during the Queensland Festival of Music a few years back.  It played a feature part in Messian's "Turangalila" Symphony—though, ironically, the pianist expressed the desire for a Steinway D instead—the low bass notes where "too round and not percussive enough"!  With it's broad swoops of pale birds-eye timber it seemed particularly massive and imposing.

Go to

http://www.stuartandsons.com/index2.php

and click on 'QUESTIONS', then 'HAS THERE BEEN ANY RESEARCH CARRIED OUT TO SUBSTANTIATE THE REASONS BEHIND THE STUART & SONS UNIQUE SOUND', then 'VIEW' to see a brief informative video about the patented agraffe design.

Note also the 8-octave F-F keyboard and the 4th 'dolce' pedal, which raises the hammer assembly closer to the strings, much like an upright soft pedal.

A young friend of mine, Robert Manley, had the opportunity to perform on the big piano with Symphony Australis in a public concert of Beethoven.  He loves the piano.  At around AU$200,000, I guess it will be a long-distance love for the time being.

Auralsculpture, I can only echo your sentiments with regard to its candidature as a potential model for a Pianoteq instrument.

And don't forget Ron Overs of Sydney, with his patented low-friction adjustable (!) action and I-rib soundboard.  Details here:

http://www.overspianos.com.au/frameset.html

Cheers,

Stephen.

In the (now 6) years since this was suggested there appears to have been little/no interest in modelling these pianos, though the Stuart pianos are certainly maintaining the interest in them.

The Phoenix bridge agraffe is also an item of continuous interest & debate, even controversy
Some thoughts on how hard it would be to model such "innovations" could be an interesting subject here, even if the physics of exactly how/why the designs have the effects they have is still debated.
I am assuming that modelling MIGHT support/refute some of the theory... maybe.

Stephen Paulello is building a 102 key flat strung piano with bridge agraffes, so an opportunity to analyze such an instrument just got local.

This is Odd.
I got the following e-mail message about 1 1/2 hours ago:

"Philippe Guillaume has replied to the topic 'Stuart Piano' to which you are subscribed. There may be more new replies, but this is the only notification you will receive until you visit the board again."

but there is no post by Philippe - I can't believe a moderator would have deleted or CENSORED Philippe's post
Is there a problem with the forum ?

Right, I was my own censor, I did write a post and thought afterwards it was not of big interest. Nevertheless, here it is (I had saved it for thinking more about it):

Interesting question tractor_music... I would say that the “4th generation piano” concept lies more in the physical modelling approach than in the piano models which are reproduced. Its originality lies in the ability offered to the user to adapt the piano to his own taste, by giving him access to physical parameters that are normally accessible only to the piano tuner (tuning and voicing section…), the piano manufacturer (soundboard impedance, duplex scale…) or the sound recording engineer (mic position). By using extreme settings, you can even create new instruments, producing sounds that were never heard before.