Richard Vance has given me great pleasure by writing intelligently and
extensively of his thoughts on the technical logic of this question.
This matches up well with actual practice and the recommendations of our
technician experts to keep things matched up and original.

Each element of the player system has its own dynamics which are unman-
ageably complex when all rolled together.  I do not dispair to think
an intelligent academic or engineer may someday have the patience and
ability to reduce it all to formulae.  What we would actually do with the
information would then be the question.

The most significant improvement to my Ampico B was from cleaning the ball
checks and re-gapping the valves.  Prior to this I had adjusted the
pushrods until they became loose in the wood, trying to even out the
response.  (Now I need to figure how to tighten them up!)

Karl Petersen¶
54, actually¶
Meridian, Idaho