G'day all you digestees out there!  Allow me to introduce myself:

   My name is Darrell Clarke, I am 50 something, married, 2 daughters,
living in Adelaide (pop. > 1M), South Australia, working in
communications.  My interests include: listening to music (I can't play
anything), collecting and restoring early technology and bush walking.
"Early technology" covers a very wide range, but I have particular
interests in player pianos, prewar radio sets and clocks.
Unfortunately, the rest of the family do not share these interests to
any extent.

   I have restored, to varying degrees, a number of player pianos,
including a Foster Marque AMPICO upright and a Stroud Duo-Art upright
(1914).  At present, I have a Steck 5' 6" Duo-Art grand (1921), the
Stroud and a Waldemar Vorsetzer (Berlin,  yet to be restored).  I am
under orders to sell the Stroud, which is the best playing of my
instruments.  :-(

   I purchased the Steck at auction (no comebacks), having first run a
test roll to confirm that it at least sort of played and noting that it
had been restored previously.    Now that I have had a chance to check
it out, fixing the odd leak and making a few adjustments have not
brought it up to performance it should have.  It plays many rolls OK,
but runs out of air all too quickly and will not regulate properly.  A
test of the pump showed similar suction under load to the Stroud and
the stack is not at all tight.  It looks like a rebuild job coming
up.   :-(

   I am interested in the conversion of reproducing rolls to other
formats (eg MIDI ) and I am very pleased to see so much activity in
this area, particularly in view of the scarcity of the real thing in
this country.  I do not have the time or resources to do it myself at
this stage, but I would be keen to try it later.

   In the mean time, I would be interested in locating sources of
re-cut or old original D-A rolls.  I note that QRS no longer list
them.  What about PlayRite etc?  Can anyone give me an update on the
current situation?  I appreciate that this has probably been covered
before.

Cheers,

Darrell