Hello Experts!  Do any of you have any ideas on how to quiet down or
silence the electric vacuum motors used in player pianos?  I have tried
several different motors, but they are all noisy.

Michael Stehney
Piedmont SC

 [ The Motor Player Corp. of Chicago made a very nice unit in the early
 [ 1920s.  I believe that it had a low-speed multi-stage axial flow
 [ turbine made of thick cast aluminum (quite expensive in those days).
 [ The motor-turbine assembly was suspended by long springs within a
 [ felt-lined wooden box.
 [
 [ A similar but much larger unit supplied the suction for the Welte-
 [ Mignon reproducing pianos in Germany, and they were often placed in
 [ a nearby closet or in the cellar below the piano.  The blowers for
 [ theater organs are often housed in a separate building to reduce the
 [ noise.  Most player pianos made in America in the teens and '20s used
 [ the positive displacement bellows pump built into the piano, which 
 [ was quieter, although more expensive.
 [
 [ See the articles in the MMD Archives, under key words "suction"
 [ and "turbine", at
 [
 [   http://mmd.foxtail.com/archives/KWIC/T/turbine.html
 [   http://mmd.foxtail.com/archives/KWIC/S/suction.html
 [
 [ -- Robbie