Larry Mayo asked what was the best upright reproducing piano.  I believe
his original inquiry was under the supposition that this would be the
only piano that would be in the house and asked what was the best
piano/reproducing system combination.  Any answer you get will be no
more than an opinion; mine is that the best upright reproducing piano,
if you were to only have one piano, would be a Steinway Duo-Art.

The Piano:

Steinway uprights have always been a top quality instrument, sometimes
equaling some of their midsize grands in quality of material, construction
and tone.  If you get into a discussion of what is the world's best
piano, there will always those that argue for the Steinway.  The are
durable instruments that will hold up over time and continue delivering
a superb tone.

The Player Action:

The Aeolian stack and other player parts are made of top quality
materials.  The design is straight forward, simple, and has a good
response.  The Aeolian made player actions are not difficult to restore
and are durable.

The Steinway Duo-Art as an 88-note player piano:

The Duo Arts have the best laid out and effective manual controls of
any reproducer ever made.  This allows you to interpret the large
number and variety of 88 note rolls available easier and better than
can be done on the other reproducers or on a pumper.  Also, unlike
most reproducers when playing 88 note rolls, the Duo-Art can play all
88 notes.

The Steinway Duo-Art as a Themodist roll player:

Of the three major reproducing systems (thence those with the most rolls
available for their systems), the Ampico, Duo-Art, and Welte-Mignon,  the
Duo-Art is the only system that uses the Themodist system.  This makes
it the only player that can effectively play a whole class of rolls:
the 88-note Themodist rolls.  These too are available with a large
variety of music.  There were other reproducing pianos that used the
Themodist system, but they, and hence their rolls, were not produced in
nearly the quantities of the Ampico, Duo-Art and Welte-Mignon.  This
makes it very difficult to get rolls specific to their reproducing
system today.

The Steinway Duo-Art as a reproducing piano:

The Duo-Art was one of the major reproducing systems and was available
internationally.  Rolls for it are therefore as easily available from
used roll auctions and as recuts as for any of the other major reproducing
systems.  This is not true of some of the obscure systems for which it
is almost impossible to find rolls.  In any discussion of what was the
best reproducing system ever made, the Duo-Art will have plenty of
supporters.

The Steinway Duo-Art as a player of other reproducing rolls:

If you go to the trouble of adding a switch in the spool box to disable
the automatic reroll device, you can, by setting two more switches that
come with the Duo-Art system, be set up to play any 11-1/4", 9-to-the-inch
reproducing roll available and interpret it very well with the hand
levers.  To complete the setup, turn repeat switch on (which disables
the automatic shut off) and set the Duo-Art on/off switch to the center
position, disabling both the Duo-Art expression system and the top and
bottom four notes.  This way you don't have to fool with tape over the
trackerbar to play other reproducing rolls.

Although the purists won't like the idea of modifying the mechanism
with a reroll cutout switch, we now find ourselves playing old,
fragile, and irreplaceable rolls that are sometimes frayed on the
edges, particularly on the left edge, instead of the new, expendable
and replaceable rolls that the Aeolian Company designed the mechanism
to play.  The Duo-Art reroll port is at the extreme left edge of the
trackerbar, so any tear or fraying on the left edge of the roll will
throw the Duo-Art into reroll so the reroll cutout switch would serve
more than one purpose.

Dick Merchant
Carlsbad, NM