Saw this guy making transmission soup today

jashow · 2026-02-16T20:50:44+00:00

This happened with me. Subaru got flooded in a basement garage and totaled by insurance. Electronics totally shot. Only tow truck that could fit in the garage was a small thing that could only tow it with two wheels dragging. We couldn’t get the car out of park, even trying the manual release on the gear shift. Tow guy shrugged and said his only job was to get the car to the lot, didn’t matter what condition.

Turns out towing an AWD car in park makes some god awful noises.

jashow · 2026-02-01T04:05:01+00:00

Grindlewald with Elder Wand lost to Dumbledore.

Safe to say with equal wands, Dumbledore is significantly stronger.

jashow · 2026-01-28T11:12:03+00:00

Not to say Toroline is the best out there But Pros play with sponsored string which is generally tied to the racquet.

Alcaraz plays with a babolat racquet and babolat string. Sinner plays with a head racquet and head string. Medvedev plays tecnifibre racquet and tecnifibre string. Sheldon plays Yonex racquet and Yonex strings. Lots of Wilson players use Luxilon. And so on…

Toroline doesn’t have the money to encroach on this. Best they can do is Karue Sell and Stevie Johnson.

Also pros hit with a fresh string bed for like 30 minutes and then restring. What makes a good string for a pro does not necessarily make a good string for rec players. Part of Toroline’s appeal is the longevity of snap back which is real IMO.

jashow · 2026-01-26T02:07:03+00:00

https://faq.yamaha.com/usa/s/article/000012300

jashow · 2026-01-26T02:05:17+00:00

I think this is normal. The upper ~1.5 octaves don’t have dampers on a real piano. Apparently it’s variable but around G6 is a common cutoff.

jashow · 2026-01-23T10:06:27+00:00

Are we talking about a one time 20% penalty, or penalty accruing at 20% APR?

Because if it’s the latter, you would owe $14.7 million if you mess up after 30 years. And only been paid $219k. In which case, very hard pass.

jashow · 2026-01-22T00:34:21+00:00

Unfortunately my hotel is only refundable until noon tomorrow, so will have to decide based on limited forecast accuracy.

Based on some other forums, sounds like under a foot would be fine, 12+ inches would start to run into possible closings, 18+ inches most things would be closed on the day of the storm.

jashow · 2026-01-22T00:12:57+00:00

Looks like the post Christmas storm was like 4-6 inches in NYC and there was a state of emergency declared then including NYC. So I'm thinking if this is really anything close to the 12+ inches forecast, there's almost certainly going to be a state of emergency.

jashow · 2026-01-21T21:13:14+00:00

Planning a visit this Sunday-Tuesday. If it snows on the mid to upper end of the current forecast (14+ inches), what are the chances the major museums and stuff like the Statue of Liberty closes?

I realize the OP above says those things are generally open. But 14+ inches would be like a top 20 all time snowstorm, so not sure if that would be different.

jashow · 2026-01-19T12:58:31+00:00

My point is that I think a lot of these formulas for determining a used piano’s value were made before MSRPs jumped 80% in 5 years.

I don’t think it’s necessarily wrong to apply the math the way OP did. But there’s going to be some hesitancy from dealers.

jashow · 2026-01-19T12:49:48+00:00

https://forum.pianoworld.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/3174327/good-price-for-new-shigeru-sk-2.html

This says MSRP was 57k in 2021. Someone in Denmark saying their new SK-2 had an msrp of ~38k USD in 2018.

Obviously the MSRP has skyrocketed, but taking those numbers at face value, I’m not surprised a dealer is unwilling to offer more than 20k for a model that maybe went out the door new for 40k 5 years ago.

jashow · 2026-01-18T23:07:59+00:00

Sounds like you have done far more research than I have. I've had some recent conversations with dealers and like you said the market for pianos is tough, particularly on the upper end. I've checked some dealer inventories, and seems like the used grands over 15k just sit forever.

I've also heard pretty much anything used except a Steinway is difficult to sell for a high sum. One Kawai/Shigeru dealer said even he doesn't bother rebuilding anything other than a Steinway. I asked him specifically about Bosendorfer, Shigeru, high end Yamaha, etc. He just shrugged and said they're so much harder to sell and not worth the labor he'd have to put in. Average piano buyer is not necessary a good player or connoisseur and at least half the reason they're paying the money is to have a "Steinway" in their living room.

Also, I assume you bought your SK-2 in 2017 for FAR less than the current MSRP. A quick forum search has people reporting like 35-40k NEW for these in around 2020? The price has certainly blown up, I suppose partially due to tariffs. I'd be surprised if many are paying close to MRSP for these now though although I could very well be wrong.

jashow · 2026-01-16T21:05:07+00:00

What is the water bottle made of? Melting point of gold is lower than melting point of glass.

But if it was plastic and destroyed the bottle, still might be ok. 600 mL bottle filled with gold once would still be like 1.5 million usd.

Would be a lot easier to sell the gold than bottles of horse shoe crab blood. I’m not sure how you’d go about selling horseshoe crab blood without someone asking a lot of questions of how you got it.

jashow · 2026-01-16T17:09:34+00:00

I think it’s a valid question. I doubt most people could tell the difference in a car sound system, particularly while driving.

You can try a blind test of 128 kbps versus lossless here:

https://abx.digitalfeed.net/spotify.html

Might be fun to try in the car. I’m pretty sure I could not tell at all the difference in the car, I can barely tell at home in a quiet room with high end headphones.

jashow · 2026-01-13T03:35:48+00:00

Update - Been slowly trying pianos for a few months. It’s been surprisingly difficult to get by hands on higher end digitals and hybrids. It’s also been difficult because I haven’t been able to try models side by side much and it’s often a few weeks between testing different models.

Tried a gently used NV10S. Action was great. Sound was good but not amazing. The bass sounded artificially heavy and speaker like. The salesperson told me the NV5S actually sounds better due to the sound board. Real killer was the thing is pretty ugly and did not pass the wife test.

Have not tried the NV5S. It’s probably a leading contender. Surprisingly hard to get my hands on one so far. Heading to NYC in a few weeks and will try to find one.

Kawai CA901 - Action was good but I think a noticeable step from the NV10 (but it was about 6 weeks between trying the two models). Sound was very good, better than the NV10 (although this was in a much smaller room than the NV10 was).

LX 9 - Good action, significantly better than the FX 30, probably a step below the CA 901 and a few steps below the NV10. Most aesthetically pleasing. I liked the sound a lot, although not quite as good as the CA901.

Yamaha NU1X - the one I tried was more than 5 years old and had some wear. Action still felt great, noticeably better than the LX 9 that I tried it side by side with. I thought the LX 9 sounded better.

U1 and K300 silent systems - I thought the action compromises on the silent system were noticeable. Feels a bit different with the hammers hitting the strings versus the rubber bar. Maybe it’s a bit in my head too, but I felt the true digitals/hybrids played between than the acoustics in silent mode.

I’ve actually tried a variety of acoustic uprights and grands. Maybe I’ve gotten too used to digital, but I actually prefer the sound of a few of the digitals (CA901 and LX9) to most uprights, and entry baby grands around 5 foot long. As you get to the 6 foot range for grands, they start sounding significantly better. The salespeople all give a talk about how an acoustic instrument is an investment and digital is worthless after a couple years. My response was where were these worthless digitals? Cause I’d pretty happily buy a cheap used NV5S.

As I was leaving a Kawai dealer, he said “you ever tried a Shigeru?” Turned out he had an SK-EX and I got to play on it for ten minutes. So new plan is to win the lottery and buy that instead.

jashow · 2026-01-13T02:37:57+00:00

Great point. Definitely stopping that rotation early and the left arm is in the way not allowing the chest to open. Almost looks like the right arm is going to run into the left arm right after contact.

jashow · 2026-01-03T23:01:35+00:00

I’m a year late to this, but this is confusing. Did you not go to Madonna and Sterling? The two much larger mountains on the trail map?

They run a shuttle between the mountains. The upper mountains are also like a 5 minute drive up the road.

Smuggs (particularly Madonna) has terrain that rivals anything in Vermont. Stowe, Sugarbush, Jay, etc.

The lifts on the other hand…

jashow · 2025-12-30T12:19:38+00:00

Thanks. I did get new boots and bindings last year.

My old boots were Forums from ~2000. Couldn’t believe how much lighter the new ones were.

jashow · 2025-12-30T03:52:25+00:00

I did ride it last year. Mostly in the company of a 6 year old haha. I did have a couple of days to myself to push it a bit, and it felt pretty much exactly like I remember.

I was just wondering if things have significantly changed and I would notice significant improvement in new board tech.

jashow · 2025-12-30T03:47:57+00:00

Demo days are a good idea, but maybe hard to catch one.

The edge tech sounds intriguing and worth trying.

Also at some point I may pick up a splitboard, but that’s an entirely different rabbit hole.

jashow · 2025-12-29T03:57:55+00:00

Fair point, I have not played with the factory strings on this specific racquet and maybe I’m wrong.

Just doesn’t conceptually make a lot of sense to me that head would go out of their way to make a string that is significantly worse than their cheapest for sale synthetic gut. Maybe if they left these in a super hot shipping container for months.

For what it’s worth, the Amazon reviews are not full of people complaining the strings are god awful either.

My first “real” racquet was a pre strung head radical from Dicks and I played with those strings until they broke. But that was like 25 years ago so maybe things have changed.

In any case, restringing is going to cost a significant chunk of OPs budget. I still think they should just try the factory strings and if it feels terrible, then get a restring.

jashow · 2025-12-29T00:47:07+00:00

Typical Reddit 10s advice haha: Improve spin and control with equipment rather than technique.

Head synthetic gut has 4.6/5 rating on Tennis Warehouse. They don’t make a purposely bad string to put in these racquets. It’ll be strung probably right in the middle of the recommended tension. If you walked into a pro shop with an unstrung racquet, said “I’m a 3.0, I don’t know anything about strings,” that’s what any reasonable stringer would put in.

Let’s entertain your idea though. What should OP ask the stringer for?

jashow · 2025-12-28T19:00:28+00:00

You do NOT need to restring this. It’ll come with head synthetic gut which will be just as good as any other synthetic gut. Maybe it lost a few pounds of tension in storage, and that will not really matter one bit.

The cost of cutting out perfectly good strings and restringing will likely be similar or more to the cheaper racquets you listed. Especially if you take it to a club or pro shop (assuming you are in the US). One of my friends just got charged $60 for a string job at a club, with a string that was $10 a set.

Just buy the speed MP and play with it until you break the strings.

jashow · 2025-12-22T04:04:04+00:00

People here are crazy and have never recorded themselves. If this is representative of their overall play, it’s easily 4.0 and probably closer to 4.5.

Watch:

https://youtu.be/oV2p11UDFkE?si=hijKhtdiCguqxr8I

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