Disklavier

I was hoping someone more knowledgeable would respond, but your
technician is correct that the Disklavier lacking hammer sensors is less
accurate.  I would expect the accuracy of recording to suffer more than
the accuracy of playback, but I don't think anyone has quantified the
differences between lower and higher-end Disklavier models (which,
depending on the music and listener, might not even be perceptible, so
don't feel bad about your purchase).

A while back, some studies were done measuring the ability of the
Disklavier to reproduce notes at various velocity levels consistently,
and as I recall, there was a moderate level of variation even on
Disklavier systems equipped with hammer velocity sensors.

But these sensors are especially important to the recording process, as
the impact time and measured hammer velocity just before the hammer hits
the strings are the critically important values to capture (and to
reproduce accurately during playback).   Eliminating these two very
accurate measurements from the recording process (and instead estimating
them based on key motion) means recordings made with such a piano will
never be quite as good as they could have been.  That's why I said a
lack of these sensors will affect recording more than playback.   If you
at least have an accurate recording, you can benefit from upgrading the
playback system at some future date.  But if the recording itself is
less accurate, there's no way to improve it later.

What generation of Disklavier is your DC2A (Mark II, Mark III, Mark IV
or E3)?

Mark Fontana


On Thu, 2012-08-23 at 02:25 +0000, Dave wrote:


> I recently  bought a DC2A, thinking it would provide the same fidelity
> in recording and playback as other Disklavier grands. But I've now
> learned from my technician that the C1 and C2 Disklaviers lack the
> hammer sensors that are found on the C3 and up models, which have both
> the hammer sensors and continuous key sensors.
> 
> As a result, the DC2A may not provide the same accuracy in playback as
> the more expensive models, according to the tech. I'm wondering if
> anyone can confirm this. And, if so, how much of an improvement do the
> hammer sensors provide?