Many enjoy the rich singing sound qualities these instruments produce. Often created as pieces of visual art, they include gold leaf moldings and borders, elaborately painted soundboards and lids. These instruments may include two eight foot registers plus the peau de buffle, a four foot register and possibly a buff stop on one of the eights. English harpsichords modeled after Hitchcock, Kirckmann and Shudi can also be expensive. These can have fancy veneers and be very solid and sturdy.
Proper voicing can result in sufficient tone.
With some unusual features including a lute register, and pedals they reflective of the later years of the harspchord's period and after the music of Bach, Handel, Couperin, Rameau and Scarlatti. The modern school of harpsichords allow authentic renditions to be performed for the music that was written specifically for them. They use modern construction and materials such as metal guides, plastic jacks, pedal mechanisms and non-historic scalings. Their tone is very different from historic instruments. Several builders have shown great imagination in creating brand new types of instruments.