> I would like to find something more in the $3.00 to $5.00 range
> (or less).

Hello Ray and all others!  When I bought (only) 60 organ valves with
5/8" pallets at Peterson (www.petersonemp.com) a year ago, they cost me
$3.95 a piece.  Maybe and hopefully, their price is still in this range...

> Also even the smaller of these valves would still be too large.

If you can space them at their pallet width or more, I would think that
the 2"x2" pallet width they need should not be a problem inside an
organ or a player piano.  Packing them at tracker bar hole distance is
more challenging: you need a sort of overlapping zigzag patterns.

The unit I plan for my Hupfeld player piano, which has a quite large
tracker bar spacing, will be like that.  There will be four rows of
valves, three of which will extend from the piano, so I will end up
with a box where the (height x width x extension) from the pianos front
is about (7" x tracker bar width x 3"), I hope.  For standard 88-note
pianos, because of the tight hole spacing, you would probably need six
rows and a more involved scheme; this might really be a problem.

> ... (and too noisy) for a player application.

Noise is no problem with organ valves, in my opinion.  If I put my ear
close to them, I'll hear them, but they are certainly not louder than
the piano keys.  When falling down, the pallet stops them totally
noiselessly, and when activated, the lever falls against a piece of
rubber.  Organ builders also like quiet valves.

Just my 0.02$, as they say!

Regards
Harald M. Mueller
Grafing bei Muenchen - Germany
http://www.haraldmmueller.de/