The most acclaimed series of recordings was the mid-60s Argo series, with touch and dynamic levels judiciously modified by a collector with a vast knowledge of the various artists' disc recordings to make them as accurate as possible there are recordings herein by Carreno, the young Nyiregyhazi and others who never made disc recordings.
There have been attempts over the years to make brand-new stereo tapes of these performances of surviving rolls, with quality that goes all over the map. It was the aim of these pianos at the time to reproduce more faithfully than ever the actual performance of a famed virtuoso.quite literally the closest thing to having him in your own home! But with the decades, surviving paper rolls have naturally deteriorated, and original molds and graphs from which the copies were made have all but disappeared, with very few exceptions.
The 'reproducing pianos' were in vogue (mainly for bourgeious families) during the first 3 decades of the twentieth century when electrical recording came of age-enabling the phonograph to reproduce much more accurately a pianist's tone, touch and dynamic range-it all but drove out of business the Ampico & Welte piano manufacturers (the two chief competitors).
