Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum Need help deciding between Kawai KG-1E or GS-60

I'm on the fence between these two pianos. Both are made right around 1990, and both are in good shape, except for one big issue, the strings on the GS are coming from a home near the beach and the strings look a bit rusted - although they sound fine (can I keep playing on them if they sound OK or is it better to re-string right away?). The prices are $4200 for the KG-1E and $7500 for the GS-60. Part of me says save the $3000+ since the KG sounds OK, but the other part says buy the GS and I won't have to "upgrade" in the future. Any thoughts about these pianos and about the prices? Thanks.

what size are these pianos?

The KG-1E is 5'4" and the GS-60 is 6'9"

I had a grand from a humid climate that showed some rust on the strings. The rust came off easily with a soft cloth and didn't come back after being moved to a slightly drier climate, and techs saw no issues with the strings since. So rust does not necessarily mean restringing if it's not deep.

If you have the space for the 6'9 and it's within your means, I'd say go for it if it checks out ok by a tech, rather than settle for the short piano that you think you can live with for now.

Well the GS60 is of course the superior piano. It is not just longer. It is a better quality instrument. Better hammers,harp ,construction,action parts,hardware etc.
If the strings are HEAVILY rusted you can bet the hammers, action felts are hard and the piano hardware is rusted as well. Rust accelerates the metalurgical breakdown in a piano. One can only clean the surface rust on the strings not the undersde or inside the agraffes etc. so....one can play it till the steel strings start breaking or the wound bass strings start dying.

Both Yamaha and Kawai both use less than #1 tuning pins originally so the pinblock is usually saveable first time around as for restringing. Have a tech assess the condition of the strings. If the steel strings have already started to break, that is an indication of breakage in the near future.

The piano is really not THAT old so when that time comes, new oversized pins,strings, bass strings, damper felt,understring felt won't be too costly. Actually this can be done in your living room.

Being that there's no other issues but some rust on the strings, I'd go with the GS60. I bought a KG5 back in the mid 80's that had some slight rust on the strings and that piano is a wonderful instrument and we're still using the original strings.

Thanks for everyone's input so far. Any thoughts on the $7500 price given the possible need for new strings?

If it's helpful. I purchased a 1991 GS-40 (6' 1") this year for $6500. Total costs including tuning, regulation, voicing, moving, etc. are now up to around $7700 I believe. $7500 seems like a pretty good price to me, though keep in mine you might need several hundred dollars worth of work to get the piano where you'd like it to be in terms of sound and touch.

I'd advise you to get the GS-60, or perhaps try to find something in between the two in terms of size since there's such a big difference between the two.

I believe the GS models are of superior quality to the KG models (more akin to the RX models), though I'm not sure. I think KawaiDon had a good on here explaining the relationships between the KG-GS-RX lines.

Yea, if you can, shop for a bit longer. You might find a very nice 5'10" or 6'1".

I would send a tech to see the GS-60, and if it checks out ok (then you'd know about restringing vs not too), and you have the room, buy it - seems like a good price, and size matters.