Hi all -

I was at a dealer recently who sells Steingraebers - but I had never played one before. I must say I was pleasantly surprised!

I wanted to ask what peoples' thoughts here are on Steingraebers.

Cheers

The best very small grand I ever played was a Steingraeber. Not cheap, but wonderful instruments.

Check the SEARCH feature at the top. Several posts about the Steingraebers.

The best of the best.

You can listen here to Eric Himy play a Steingraeber from Hurstwood, England.

http://www.erichimy.com/cd.htm
listen under the SCHUMANN CD exerpts

And you can watch him here play a Steingraeber customized from PianoCraft on You Tube below or the Liszt - Debussy recordings on the above page.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-HLRkUtsYc

I was priviledged to play that one last spring. An experience I shall never forget.

anyone with a recent purchase / real price experience? DId not find any in the price Paid thread..

No purchase or price experience here I'm afraid, but I will tell you that they are the best of the best. You can expect to pay for this kind of quality.
IMHO one of the VERY few pianos in the world able to compete with a well-prepped Hamburg Steinway.

Andromaque,

Your local Steingraeber dealer is Ori from Allegro Pianos in N. Stamford Ct.

http://www.allegropianos.com/

I am sure that what he has is prepped and ready to be played. He has ONE price for whomever purchases and has low overhead with no salesmen and the studio is an extension of his home.

They are however, expensive!

I thought Ori was opening up a show room. Has that happened or has the economic turmoil delayed the project?

We bought on recently - I think the best instrument out there, but I will admit that at that level it also becomes a matter of taste.

Although, one thing I think I can say (these being reasonably objective criteria other than the how much one likes the tone or the action) is that I have played any other instrument which is equally responsive and flexible in tone, as well as intimate and powerful at the same time (this applies to the D-232).

Markus

Brilliant pianos. Top notch.

Yup - I have played some of the Steingraeber uprights at Marksons and they are truly beautiful instruments easily justifying vying for the title of "best made piano in the world". Attention to detail and quality of build is second to none and the tonal range and responsive actions are really superb... had I not got a better deal on the Sauter M-line I would have purchased the Steingraeber 122, it was amazing.

My Steingraeber upright has settled in wonderfully in its new environment. Today I marveled at how good Mozart sounded on it. The tone is clear, singing, romantic, bitter sweet and well balanced. The fundamental tone is sprinkled with just the right amount of overtones.

Surely one of the best.

I played a Steingraeber grand at the PTG convention last June.

I was astonished how well I could control the volume and dynamics playing whisper-quiet!

One excellent way of getting to know a piano is to tune it. Listening to each string repeatedly and individually gives the technician a very deep insight into the piano construction quality, sound, tone and response.

By my estimation, and that of a number of colleagues who are fortunate enough to have had such "close encounters" with Steingraebers, they are the best vertical pianos out there. The grands are spectacular as well.

A little something to drool over: Steingraeber & Söhne in Bayreuth: Die vielleicht ungewöhnlichste Klavierfabrik der Welt

"Ein gutes Klavier ist ein Chamäleon".

Top quality instruments. And a very innovative company, too. They experiment with soundboards of carbon, have bridge agraffes and extended the una corda pedal of grand pianos with a half blow function. In uprights they offer an action with magnetic fallback without jack springs. Look here:

http://www.steingraeber.de/english/instruments/innovations_73.html

I saw the phoenix at the Frankurt Music Fair 2008, but unfortunatley you can´t hear anything on a fair like that. Too many pianos, too loud to test.

Gregor

Lovely pianos. I'ved played them at PianoCraft in MD. I think their 168 model is one of the most incredible pianos I've ever touched.

Ahhh yes, but how do you pronounce it?

Ditto on the 168 model. It is a joy to play.

I have not chanced upon playing a grand. But the upright is more than enough for me. As what is mentioned by Pianistical on the tone, I’ll add on the bass is by far the deepest, gloomiest I ever heard on an upright. I dub it – the ghost sound especially on the last few keys. A less brand-conscious planist played on it and commented it sounded very nice and I’m more than happy to know that it wasn’t just me.

yup agree with you Playmusic, the bass on the 138 upright I played was soooooooooooo dark and gloomy - not at all unpleasant but seriously gloom-inspiring hehe.

My experience with the brand is only with the upright 130. If an upright is what you need, then I say go for it. You won't go wrong.

It's a beautiful sounding piano (although the standard 130 looks pretty much like any other piano). I was in a showroom of upright Schimmels and Wilh Steinbergs, but the Steingraeber 130 upright just sounded a whole class better than everything else. Deep, rich bass (and yes, deliciously gloomy too), bell-like high notes - I don't really know how to describe it since I'm a noob at piano. But compared to the others, it seemed like it didn't just have a sound - it had a voice.

I thought I was just oversold on it, but over the weeks, whenever I was in the showroom and someone tried the Steingraeber, whether adult or child (and all played well), they invariably picked it over the other very good instruments for sound and touch. They couldn't get over these - but ultimately also couldn't get over the price. That was the main sticking point.

The 130 retails at $42,500 (Singapore dollars, so maybe about $30,000 USD). Pre-owned is near impossible to get - but even the rare one (say about 10 years old and about $35,000 at time of purchase) can be sold for $25,000. And apparently those who sell them do so to upgrade to the Steingraeber grands, usually the 168 in space-scarce Singapore.

Apparently, there must be quite a few Steingraebers in Singapore - Chiu Piano, the dealer, has some kind of special award from the company. I know they sold at least 4 130s and a 168 last year alone.

But you really, really need to hear a Steingraeber 130 for yourself to understand. I heard a lot of other uprights (Yamaha, Kawai, Steinway, Kemble, Wilh Steinberg, Schimmel)before I decided. The payments still hurt - but everytime I sit down to play, all is forgiven.

Beautiful post, Wye Mun and welcome to pianoworld!

In the UK Hurstwood Piano Studios are the Steingreaber experts. They work closely with Udo and are instrumental (pun intended ;-) in some of the technical innovations we see coming from the factory, including the Phoenix.

I have posted before that in my opinion the 7ft model outperforms many much larger pianos, let alone the other B sized stuff, and is great value for money.

Played a great one in Switzerland too. Very consistent quality I think. I beleive Keith Kerman's business is one of the leading US experts.

Caveat - I have not been to Hurstwood for about at year so I don't know what they are currently up to.

Adrian

Adrian,
Are you speaking of the 205 or the 232? I have not played the latter.
IMHO these pianos are probably the best in the world for impressionist music and classical music (my other top choice for these styles is Fazioli). I do not think they outperform similar-sized Steinways in the romantic repertoire. Of course the consistency and quality control will be superb when a manufacturer makes some 50-100 pianos per year.

I was talking about the 205 actually. I have played several. Brilliant piano in my view and they were around the £35,000 mark as I recall which is a lot cheaper than a S&S Hamburg B - and I preferred the Steingreaber.

I don't remember playing a 232 but I have played a few 9 footers (whatever that is in metric), including the Phoenix and they are nice too. Not not quite as dramatically outstanding as the 205 for me as the concert grands are a different beast really.

Kind regards

Adrian

I just played a new 272 and a 168 at Eve Magne's showroom in Paris. I had previously played a 205 at Cathy Harl's place. They are absolutely fantastic instruments. The 205 and especially the 272 are definitely among to top 5 finest pianos I've ever played.

When I get a few minutes I'll post something about my visit to Piano Magnes with photos.

In the meantime here is pic of the two Steingraebers:

and of the the 272 alone:
Sorry for the low quality but I used my phone camera.

My dream art case piano, a little Steingraeber 168 Renaissance

Posted by Steve Chandler:
Steve,

The new showroom is progressing well.
There are no delays due to economic turmoil...but only the regular construction delays since this is a new building designed and built from the ground up.

For the past 6 months the contractor claimed that the building would be ready "within two months".
Now, he revised his estimated completion time to..."8 weeks"!

However, at this point I actually start to take this time estimation seriously, and hope that the new showroom will be open in March.


As for the Steingraebers, I think the comments on this thread speak well of how well thought of these instruments are...and especially by anyone who is lucky enough to actually play them.

All I can add is that in our showroom, Steingraeber pianos face VERY serious competition as they are placed side by side with a few other highly regarded high-end brands.
Yet, we have enough customers deciding on Steingraeber pianos so that we have become the largest Steingraeber dealer in the country, and most likely in the world, for 2008.

Sorry to say, Adrian, but £ 35 000 will not get you a Steingraeber 205 anymore. That probably was in times of an exchange rate of more than € 1.40 for the pound ...

In Germany, the Steingraeber is generally about 10-15% less than the equivalent sized Steinway, whereas the difference gets less the larger the instrument gets ...