Kawai RX2

[jmills32000]

I recently purchased a 2000 RX2 and am unhappy with the tone.  This didn't become apparent until the piano was delivered.  The piano has a nice resonant bass and upper treble area and sound quite nice when played softly.  I have upgraded the hammers and still this twangy tone comes through when played forte.   I have looked through the piano making sure screws and hardware are all tight.  Any thoughts on how this could be remedied?

[awesom_o]

What hammers did you 'upgrade' to?

Who recommended changing the hammers?

Did you buy the piano from a dealer?

[hfmadopter]

Sometimes harsh or twangy tones in Forte can be to do with room compliments/acoustics. Is it across the keyboard or within a given range ? And too, it could be the hammers need voicing ( either the old or the new hammers). Or even fine tuning as well.

[jmills32000]

I did buy it from a dealer.  I upgraded to Isaac profundo hammers.  The sound is twangy throughout the piano but more apparent in the middle c to octave above middle c range when played forte.  There are two lower D notes (one and two octaves below middle c) that are particularly ugly but that is the least of my concerns now

[jmills32000]

What is meant when you say fine tuning?

[quantum]

How recently did you do your hammer upgrade?  Hammers need a break in period.  After they have settled in you may wish to have them voiced again in order to further refine the tone. 

[awesom_o]

I did buy it from a dealer.  I upgraded to Isaac profundo hammers.

Ordinarily your best option would be to call the dealer you purchased the piano from and ask for their technician to come and voice the piano for you.

However, since you had the hammers changed, the dealer probably won't be able to help you out.

Who installed the hammers?

[hfmadopter]

What is meant when you say fine tuning?

Finer voicing of the hammers and also of the overall tune of the piano. Everything will settle in over time and it may take two or three visits from a good tech to get it all right. Plus the rooms acoustics play into this. I killed my ears with my grand when my wife had the idea that it would be nice facing out from a corner of the living room, the mid upper register was just clocking my ears as the sound bounced off the wall to my right front, for instance. Hard wood floors vs carpet under the piano. Flat sheet rock ceiling and walls will nail ya. It really needs voicing mellow for that but then put up a tapestry and put in a carpet and the piano suddenly gets all dull sounding. A group of people in the room vs no one too changes resonance. A lamp with bare bulbs can ring in a certain octave range and you would swear it's coming from the piano.

[hermerik]

Interesting -- I have a Sauter Delta and have some weird acoustic artifacts too. Around upper bass
(first D or D-sharp note below middle C) it is like a resonance phenomena -- quite disturbing. I did change the piano to another Sauter Delta bc I really loved this type of grand and I had other issues too -- the new one was much better overall BUT this phenomena remained. Proof; it is the room? Quite surely yes I would say. But how to solve it? My tech did some voicing but did not dare to go much further..

So you (awesom_o) are saying lightbulbs can do such weird things? well maybe I should go around and check every little thing in that room...   

[hfmadopter]

Just reiterating.  But the first hint of my piano going out of tune is a twangy middle C. The next is fifths start getting weird so chords start to be less harmonious. Now the reason this particular note shows first is it has had a string replaced, so it needs to be perfectly tuned. Fifths and chords is harmony and also sympathetic resonance collides. I would suggest again to let the piano settle in in your house for a bit and get it retuned. Often this twang ( if we are speaking of the same twang !!) will show on an ever so slight out of tune piano...... The twang is probably noticeably there  below forte as well but forte brings it out. Also room acoustics can play into this. Acoustics can either help mask odd sounds or magnify them depending on room treatment.. FWIW, I had this ringing I thought was from my piano and it turned out to be a free standing lamp, whether the shade or light bulb I don't know, but I moved it and the sound was gone.

To hermerik: take a look inside your piano. How are the bass and transition strings wound ? Look at double and triple wound string transition and particularly the point where those all step down to single. Se if you recognize a sudden step to the point where you have this off tone. Quality pianos often have some of the smaller single wires wrapped, in the old days in steel, today in copper and that can make the transition from bass to mid treble more smooth sounding.

Second is steps in length, sudden changes and also how attaching points change or do not . Felt under the string over the fret board ( I call it fret, its the raised  strip of wood that holds the strings up off the sound board opposite end of the piano from the tuning pins).. Some makers do an over under pass there, like a weave. Finally look that all strings are properly seated at the hitch pins on the harp. Sometimes a string will not be seated there. This is all design stuff. A good tech may or may not be able to address some this for you.

[noahjuan]

New Kawai RX-2 BLAK:
I bought this piano, new from the dealer, late last December (2013). It seemed to become more and more unplayable. In March, a technician came out to perform the first tuning. I was not satisfied because there were additional issues that tuning alone could not fix. The dealer sent a second technician to work on the underlevers and adjust all of the dampers. …Still not satisfied, I contacted Kawai for a recommendation for a technician that had factory training.
Most of the underlevers, from G4 down, had a horrible buzz. This is a known issue that required the 2nd technician to pull all of them (the underlevers) out and compress and seat the metal counter weights with blow from a mallet and punch.
The factory recommended technician (3rd technician – he also spent one week at the Shigeru technical school) spent 5 ˝ hours regulating and voicing the piano. I had to personally foot the bill for this visit. It was worth the expense. Keys were double striking, the back checks were out of adjustment and the key drop was unequal across the entire keyboard. He essentially dismantled the action and started from scratch. He sanded every hammer head and once reassembled, voiced the piano to my liking. He did recommend Able or Renner hammers for a different (better) sound but I’m happy with the voicing. I didn't feel compelled to spend an extra $3,500+. And yes, you must take into account all of the anomalies that ceiling fans, glass doors and windows, flooring, etc. can cause.
Some of the strings had a “rattle”, especially in the middle register, which was due to some of the strings not being fully seated on the bridge. A light tap on the string at the bridge pin took care of the rattles.
The only thing that still bothers me a bit is when the dampers lift off of the strings, either individually or when the sustain pedal is depressed, they brush against the string and there is a light “singing”.
This piano is the best I could buy with the resources and had at the time. If I had an extra $25,000, I would have bought a ten year old Bosendorfer model 170 that I played in Dallas. A few scratches on the case/outer rim but otherwise a remarkable instrument. I’m saving up for the upgrade to the Bosendorfer.

[silverwoodpianos]

  The piano has a nice resonant bass and upper treble area and sound quite nice when played softly.  I have upgraded the hammers and still this twangy tone comes through when played forte.   

Who recommended changing the hammers? 

Who installed the hammers?

Better still who recommended changing the hammer set previous to determining that this was the cause of the poor tone.

According to the OP the instrument is satisfactory when played moderately but has poor tone when played under heavy load (forte)

Obviously the change has failed to remedy because the problem does not originate in the hammer set.