AW.: Re: Re: re: 22tet Keyboard example

In einer Nachricht vom 1/13/00 10:41:30 AM (MEZ) Mitteleurop�ische Zeit
schreibt clumma@nni.com:

<< Even if the prices in the piano industry have gone up, things in general
have gone down, I think (based on the fact that the average man-hour
produces so much more today than ever in the past). >>

This will take us way off topic, but your statement is not quite right.
Handwork, of any sort, in western countries, has become more expensive.
Manufactured goods are indeed sometimes less expensive, but this depends on
volume, innovation in production techniques and reduced labour costs. Piano
manufacturing in the US long ago ceased to reach the production levels needed
to offset the labour costs, and the kind of iron casting used in piano frames
represents both an archaic material and a form of manufacture that largely
ceased to innovate in the 19th century.

A recent history of Steinway gives an indication of just how small the
production line has been. Even Far East manufacturers are able to maintain
piano manufacturing now only as loss centers within diversified firms or with
extensive subcontracting to low-labour countries. An alternative design for
a piano frame is not likely ever to be made in a production large enough to
compensate for the development costs which are the same whether one produce
one or many frames.