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I don't play but may want to. I am looking at a George Steck GS27D baby grand. Since I want to hear GOOD music coming from it right away, I want to put a pianodisc player system in it. Anybody know about these pianos and pricing, so i don't get ripped off. PLEASE HELP

More help here in the Piano Forum

Welcome to the forum, montanabnb. Mark is right; you should repost your question over in the main Piano Forum.

I would also recommend that you buy the "Idiot's Guide to Buying an Acoustic Piano" by Marty and Jennifer Flinn (who both are regular PW posters) or "The Piano Book" by Larry Fine, the 4th edition and, especially, the 2008-2009 price supplement. That will help you determine whether a price you are being offered is fair.

Then after you get your piano come back here to AB forum and you'll find plenty of support in learning how to play.

Thanks for the info. I will follow up. I already had posted on the Piano Forum as well. I will post any info I find for others help too.

It is not uncommon for a person who has
never played a note to buy a grand piano
as his very first instrument to learn
to play on. However, the classified
ads are filled with such grand pianos:
the person soon discovers the difficulties
involved in playing and loses interest,
and then the grand is just a big piece
of unusable furniture from then on that
makes him ill every time he looks at
it so that he just wants to get it
out of the house as soon as possible--
this is going to be an especially bad
situation if you bought it on credit
and are still making payments on it
that you can ill-afford when you quit playing.
(You might reason that you could still
use it with the player device, but I
would think that the novelty for that
kind of thing would soon wear off.)

Rather than an expensive grand I
would instead recommend a digital piano.
Digital pianos are inexpensive and maintenance-
free and will play grand piano-like.
For example, you can get the Williams
Encore online for about $680, including
factory stand, bench, pedal, and shipping.
This is an inexpensive but capable
grand piano-like instrument that you
can play anything on that you could on
the baby grand.

I have to agree, if you've never played before, it would probably be worthwhile to spend 6 months to a year playing a weighted-key digital before investing in a grand. Not only will you make sure you really want to play the piano, but you'll also be better informed when you go shopping for your grand (or whatever).

I'm not going to recommend any specific brand of digital. Check out the digital forum to see which models people tend to like and their price ranges. I would also recommend checking your local Craigslist. You may be able to pick up a decent used digital for a song (no pun intended)

Thanks for the informaiton and appreciate trying to give me a "break in" instrument. Without sounding pompous, I am more concerned in not getting ripped off, than paying a fair price for a BG. I want the player system as a way to, in essence, buy my insurance that if I decided I don't want to play or that I don't want to make the commitment, I can still have an instrument that will play FOR me. it will make a nice addition to one of my rooms that i would rather not make a formal living room. I am finding that buying a piano is like trying to get prices out of a car dealer! I have bought and sold horses when i owned a small ranch and this is a wooden reminder of that process!! I guess absent checking Finn's books out, I am pretty much going to have to use good "horse sense". If anybody knows the price or the wholesale/retail price on the piano Im thinking of buying, that would be helpful.

Gyro's posts are usually moronic because he's a bit odd, but then again...

Anyway, he actually is making sense here in that jumping into something to big untested has the potential to work out, or explode!

A fairly good quality digital is the way to go to at least try things out. Should the interest continue or even grow then an upgrade would be in order.

Why take the financial risk?, especially now!.

You can use the digital as a player piano using midi files instead of having a pianodisc system. Just wire it through your computer and stereo system.