Permit me to enthusiastically endorse Craig Brougher's advice about the
importance of properly regulating the piano itself for good reproducer
performance, by relating my own experience.

For many years, my Chickering Ampico grand worked okay, and passed
all the 'pneumatic' tests, but something seemed to be missing; the
performances did not seem to be up to the standards that one heard on
recordings or other people's instruments.

I decided to buy Reblitz's 'Piano Tuning, Servicing and Rebuilding',
and go the 'whole nine yards'.  After new pins and strings, hammers and
dampers, I attacked the problem of regulation.  I followed every step,
and it took a long time and a lot of trial-and-error, being that I am
strictly an amateur and new at the work.

But, when I was done, and the piano played evenly along the whole
scale, and each note spoke softly but clearly with a light touch of
the finger, the results during roll play were amazing.

I was able to take several turns of the Crescendo spring nuts, thereby
lowering the force of the softest notes without loosing these notes.
This, in effect, widened the resolution of the coded instructions in
the 'pp' to 'mf' range, where many of the subtleties of musical
interpretation lie.  It is not even possible to put a percentage number
on the improvement; it was like Night and Day!

In short, any player, if it doesn't leak, can play loudly.  If you want
it to play soft notes properly, put the player rebuilding aside for a
while, and make sure the piano itself plays as well as it can.

Richard Vance