Thinking of pianos particularly, modern MIDI systems don't offer
interactive control, so the one instrument that has no competition is
the player piano.  It remains as good as it ever was for those who want
to make their own music but can't play the piano.

You play to match your mood, the piano, the audience, whatever, and the
same instrument will operate at pretty well any level of performance
from unexpressive to full concert level!  What modern device offers all
that?  They're pretty reliable and long-lived as well.  Niche appeal,
maybe, but far from being a dinosaur.

Modern solenoid pianos offer, at a technical level, close competition
to pneumatic reproducing pianos.  Richard Riley's 7'6" Yamaha
Disklavier Pro that we heard at the Sacramento AMICA convention was
genuinely impressive.  Combining the individual note dynamics and
recording ability of the earlier domestic [Disklavier] versions with
the power to equal or exceed pneumatic systems makes for a formidable
machine!

Musically it's a different matter, and presumably the old pneumatic
reproducing piano repertoire won't be equalled except in the unlikely
event of someone with buckets of money getting many of today's leading
concert artists to make recordings.  Even if automated translation of
roll performances was perfect (which it probably never will be, given
the number of variables), top-condition reproducing pianos must always
be a vital reference point to judge the results.  In that sense the
modern high-tech still relies on the old high-tech for its accuracy,
so it is evolution rather than extinction of the old.

Julian Dyer

 [ "Buckets of money..."  I believe the last entrepreneur fitting
 [ that description was Joe Tushinsky, who poured bucketsfull into
 [ the musical library of the Marantz PianoCorder.  Yamaha bought
 [ Marantz especially to gain control of the patents and that library.
 [ The live performances by modern artists like George Shearing and
 [ Liberace and Thelonious Monk remain among their "best sellers".
 [ -- Robbie