I just read a short paper by a modern piano engineer about how pianists
perceive the relative quality of the pianos they play.  In an elaborate
experiment, 12 expert performing pianists from the Leningrad
Conservatory of Music were allowed to play and get familiar with three
grand pianos: a Hamburg Steinway, a Bechstein, and a Leningrad.

In Test #1 the researchers re-confirmed that a pianist's evaluation
of piano quality was strongly influenced by knowledge of the piano they
played.  They held the Steinway in highest regard, followed by the
Bechstein and, lastly, the Leningrad piano.  This finding was not
unexpected.

In Test #2 following, the pianist's were blindfolded and asked to
identify which piano was playing scales or chords.  The responses
didn't correlate at all with the pianist's preferences of test #1.
This also was not unexpected.

The big surprise emerged from Test #3:  "The quality difference
between the three pianos, which was attributed by the experts to the
tone quality, could be attributed primarily to the mechanical response,
thus dramatically re-focussing the industrial R&D from the tone
generation units (hammers, strings, and soundboard) to the key action."

Read the entire paper, "Perception of Musical Instrument by Performer
and Listener (with application to the piano)" (it's not very long),
at http://www.engineeringandmusic.de/individu/galealex/gaalproc.html

The author is Dr. Alexander Galembo (Ph.D. in Electroacoustics) of
the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia.  He is
currently a Guest Researcher at Music Acoustics Lab, Dept. of Speech,
Music and Hearing, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden.
(See http://www.speech.kth.se/music/index.html)

Dr. Galembo is currently investigating acoustical/psychological issues
related to touch vs. tone relations in pianos.  His biography is at
http://www.geocities.com/galembo_alex/

(A banjo hangs on the wall behind him in the photo of his office.
I like him already!  ;-)

Robbie Rhodes