Here's something to kick around, I came across the
www.paskpiano.org site and was reminded that several years ago I was contacted by the son of Josef Hofmann to visit and appraise the condition of a Steinway grand in Boston that had for several years been in a storage facility in town. The piano was in a caged unit all set up, and indeed was one of the slightly shorter keyboards that Steinway made specifically for Josef Hofmann. At that time I did not realize that in addition to his pianistic legacy he was a tireless innovator and inventor and several of his recommended piano action improvements were adopted by Steinway. This particular piano apart from being a slightly shortened keyboard also had several maybe a dozen holes about the size of a quarter drilled out in the soundboard as he experimented with improved tonal projection, i guess that was one recommendation Steinway didn't implement.
------------------------------
Martin Snow
Boston MA
617-543-1030
------------------------------