Hello all,

I've seen a lot of people on here refer to "the pianobook" by Larry Fine and his ratings/reviews that i've became curious about his opninion on mine.
Unfortunately i haven't been able to lay hands on a copy.

It would be nice if someone here owning a copy could tell me something about Larry's rating of my piano and how it's compared to other piano's.

I have an Apollo RU-385 which is the top-model of upright pianos made by Toyo in Japan.

Thanks!

Anyone out there who wants to throw a peek in the book and tell me about it?

I'd really like to know,

Thanks all and sorry if I'm asking newbie-questions here...

I believe that Fine's interest is largely related to instruments imported to the U.S. There is no listing for Apollo. He notes as regards Toyo "No longer imported into the U.S. This is a Japanese piano no longer imported into the U.S. It was considered a good piano especially in the larger models." I have a good friend that had a Toyo grand in the early 90's and it was he thought OK but not extraordinary. My info comes from the 2005 edition of The Piano Book. There is no listin in the supplement circa 2006-2007.

Sad really, it should be imported I think .
In the shop where I bought it, I compared it with a Yamaha U3. Sound-wise, my Apollo sounded overall better than this Yamaha, better dynamics, more even and balanced, and somewhat softer, less sharp compared to the Yamaha. I guess it also depends on the specific instrument, another Apollo, same model, sounded pretty similar to the Yamaha and thus much less to my liking.

In terms of quality the shopowner told me it was quite equal to the Yamaha U3, with the action even being superior since Apollo features a real una-corda pedal which improves repetition-possibilities a lot compared to the usual "shift hammers closer to strings" mechanism.

As a nice bonus, it was quite a bit cheaper then the U3.