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Played only ten hours since it was restored in 2004...

I find that strange...

I would attribute that to the recording equipment... my crappy audio recordings never do a good piano justice, and the treble always sounds...whiny? not the best word to describe it but I cant think of a better one.

I would totally drive down there to look at it just to see what its like in person if I could haha. You cant really "fall in love" with a piano based on pictures and (poor quality?) audio, so seeing/playing it in person would be the deciding factor I suppose.

I too thought it sounded tinny and thin. Of course, this could be the recording. I'd love to hear it live.

I'm being picky here but what bothered me most about this piano was the "Baldwin" decal on the side. For some reason, side decals seem so cheesy to me, I don't like them one bit. Also, I'm guessing the decal above the keyboard originally read "Baldwin, Cincinnati, U.S.A.", and not simply "Baldwin". Call me old school.

That said, I wish I had $19,500.

C

Hey Gang,
This was a piano that I had for sale. It has been sold to a recording studio in Nashville. The price was real and everything in the ad was absolutely true. I realise that the recording did not do this piano justice for sure. The piano was in like new condition and as such it really needed the equivalent of a complete "dealer prep" to bring out the potential, plus it's darn hard recording a 9' concert grand piano in a dining room. The room was far, far too small to bring out the pianos potential. The piano needed tuning and voicing. I also listed the piano for sale here in Piano World's "Pianos for sale" area. IT was truly a fantastic piano. The buyer brought along his piano tech, who is a first call tech here in Nashville. The tech LOVED, LOVED, LOVED the piano. It was fun "brokering" this deal but it's pretty hard unloading a 9' concert grand piano these days. There is a limited market for these beasts. This piano was one of the best pianos I have ever played. BTW - that was me playing on the recording.

^^ Interesting! Thanks for coming on and telling us! ^^

I still think I probably wouldn't like the piano a heck of a lot. No offense though.
I don't think the room and the equipment would affect the impression radically; even lousy equipment and bad spaces won't hide the essence of a piano. (And if they did hide it, maybe you made a mistake not doing something about it for the sake of the recording, because it could have made a difference of thousands of dollars. I certainly don't understand why you wouldn't have had it tuned and at least 'lightly' voiced -- although I don't think those things much affected our impressions here.)

Anyway.....congrats on the sale, and I'm glad you came on here to tell us more about the piano and I'm sure other people will be too.

Are you going to be able to purchase it? It sounds great. How wonderful if you have the room, not to mention the money.

There is an interesting phenominon when recording a piano. Sometimes, I have noticed, even when the piano IS freshly tuned, a piano can still sound out of tune on a recording. Has anybody else experienced this and have any insight as to why this is the case. This piano was recorded with two fairly high quality small diaphragm condenser mics close in, one over the treble side placed near the bridge pins facing the tuning pins, in other words in an almost horizontal orientation, with an angle toward the strings. The bass mic was done similarly only it wasn't place very close to the bridge pins, it was probably about 12 - 15 inches away from the tuning pins. The music rack was in the upright position so in essence the mics were in a kind of acoustic box. The short stick on that piano is fairly short. The piano really sounded much, much better live. On top of that, Youtube compresses audio on everything to conserve band width. My preference would have been to open the lid on the long stick and place the mics about 4 feet back and record from there in a stereo pair. The guy who owned the piano is Mark Gray, a long time Nashville singer and songwriter who, on top of having a stroke that effected his arms and hands, also has some other lingering effects that affect his speach and his general demeanor. It was his idea to record the piano that way and I didn't think it did much for the piano at all. In his current state of health he gets very excitable and I did't want to agitate him. I just recorded it his way and made the best of it. I sold a Steinway recently that I recorded on full stick with the mics back about two feet and it came out a better recording in my opinion. What are your experiences?

In my experience, pianos sound their best when recorded with large diaphragm mics placed about 9' away or more, but I only record classical music, where this technique is more widely used. Congrats on your sale!

"Tuning" wasn't the issue.
Tone and dynamic range were the issues.

Well, tone and dynamic range, especially dynamic range, are seriously compromised by Youtubes compression scheme. The piano has a magnificant tone and can go from whisper soft to thunderous with no problem. I guess you would have just had to hear it yourself. I realize that different people look for different things in a piano's tone, so this may or may not have been to your liking, but don't judge it by the youtube video, the video sounded nothing like the piano in person.

Indeed youtube does funny things with the dynamic range.

Youtube is a horrid way to judge a piano. A $180k new piano can sound like an $180 100 year old piano on youtube.

Well, I don't agree with that in the least.

Youtube is its own frame of reference, and a real good piano should still stand out -- and I think it almost always does.

Hmm well sometimes. But I honestly have come across a lot of bad videos! Taking my krakauer video into perspective.

Of course.
I'm just saying the real good pianos stand out from the crowd.
If a piano sounds mediocre, it almost certainly is.