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Voci Armoniche Reeds

The "Timbre/accoustic profile" reads (pardon the pun) like something from a wine description. ;)
The problem is that the Timbre/acoustic profile is hard to describe in words but when you keep everything else in the sound production equal it can easily be heard. A friend of mine bought a used accordion (Bugari Championcassotto) with warranty. We opened it up and found that while almost everything looked to be in pristine condition, one reed was clearly rusted. You couldn't hear a difference in sound with the other reeds, but clearly in the long run that would not be a good thing. She took the accordion back and had the reed replaced (by one of the same quality) and after that you could easily tell which reed had been replaced. It's hard to describe the difference but you could hear the difference in timbre. (It wasn't bad, just not perfectly identical to the other reeds.)
What I am surprised about in the table is that the blue star reeds are not made out of a narrow strip of steel but out of a wider band. I guess they think the second round of tempering (heating and shock-cooling) will compensate for that, but I don't know. The table doesn't specify it but reeds cut from the wide band are cut sideways and reeds cut from the narrow band are cut lengthwise.
 
that second round of Tempering.. tempering steel is a bit of an art,
knife and tool makers sometimes need to re-temper their product
to reverse the effects of spot heating from grinding and tooling.. you heat
the steel slowly until your matching heat-stick begins to melt
(if in an oven)
OR you swipe a heat crayon across the steel and the color change happens
at the correct temp
so you stop the heating process, then begin the cooling process

after they are cut but before they are mounted ? well how in the hell
you gonna lay all those little bits of Steel out so they heat evenly and
are cooled evenly ? and then all the little quick filing adjustments
when you hand rivet and line them up in their reedplate ?

and you know they use several same size sized reedplates for a section of
notes, so obviously each reed[pitch is different in final mass and thickness for that
set of notes between pitches, so the blueing should show clear steel from the
filing adjustments by the diamond belt on your tuning station

ok so second tempering after being mounted ? well how in the hell
you expect the duraluminum to go through that without being the
worse for it ? you superheat the entire assembled reed and not expect
the rivet to howl and the Aluminum to scream while the reed-tongue gets
it's trial by fire re-tempering ?

more like salesman's bullshit and the second tempering is simple chemical
blueing like we use on Gun barrels

do you want to take advantage of modern technology to make a superior
hand made reed and are you willing to pay the cost of new machines and
the programming needed ? Fine, take mathematically perfectly sized reed-plate
design parameters and stamp each uniquely sized plate in the set with perfection..
(each note will be a slightly different, so you are now working with 65 uniquely
sized duraluminum reed-shells for a 41 note treble design)
NOW a computer scan of each individual reed-plate and a LAZER cutting the
matching steel tongue for a PERFECT FIT..
lazer punch the mounting holes for twin rivet mounting as well..
NOW a Lazer controlled router cutting the wooden reedblock out so each reed has it's matching
perfectly sized chamber for each note, and plate matching embouchure to mate with..

since the mating surfaces will be absolutely perfect, the metal against wood will not
leak air and only need minor pressure to hold their seal, so just a bead of reed-wax around
the edges will do

fine tuning with your diamond belt on the computer controlled tuning station using the
programming to adjust for the position of the reed (in or out) and measured deviation
from sampling of the final assembly inside the specific accordion design, so that after
installation in the accordion, little or no final pitch adjustment is needed

just sayin'
 
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