Just saw this ad:

Check this out:

http://www.farleyspianos.com/gallery/featured/waltergrand.html

Charles Walter Grand

This Charles Walter grand piano is the brand new model, the 175. This 175 is adorned in ebony polish and is 5’10” in length. The Charles Walter pianos are still in production in the Elkhart, Indiana and are hand produced by Kevin Walter and his staff of fine craftsman. With its smooth lines, sharp music desk, singing tone and sensitive touch it is sure to please any pianist.

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How does it differ (other than size) from the 190?
Relative price?

Not on their web site yet.

I read somewhere (here?) that the 175 would only be about $1000 less than the 190.

This is another one of Del Fandrich's designs, including more than just the soundboard (I don't know the details).

It should out-perform just about any other piano of its size.

--Cy--

Be careful where you say that, Cy. A lot of Mason and Hamlin and Estonia owners are going to come looking for you!

The price is exactly 1,000 less according to the 2006-2007 Annual Supplement to the Piano Book.

Being a good Daddy, I volunteered to drive my youngest daughter's rented moving van from Rochester, NY to Iowa City, IA . Ok, I admit, I knew Elkhart, IN was on the route and it would give me an excuse to visit the Charles Walter Piano factory and retail showroom.

Today, around 11:00 a.m., I was met at the door by one of the son-in-laws, Richard Counsellor. After a few minutes in the showroom, Richard gave me a very nice private tour of the factory. I saw several 175s in various stages of completion, which was nice because Richard could show and tell me this or that about the piano and why it will "play bigger" than it is.

We went back to the retail showroom, which to me, surprisingly, had other brands of pianos in there, including Schimmel and Mason & Hamlin. I sat down and played a little on a couple of CW 190s and the Schimmel and MH. Then the fun part. I crawled under the various pianos to check the undercarriage. In my opinion, underneath, the CW is the prettiest of the bunch. Not that I plan to spend a lot of time under a grand, but if I ever have another night of martinis, Bordeaux wine and Portugese port wine, I may be in the position to examine the underside of a piano. The topside of the CW was quite beautiful, too.

It was a fun and interesting tour of the Charles Walter factory, seeing the new 175 and playing the 190. Back to scales...

Bill

Bill, thanks for the update on the 175, and its pretty underside. But....HOW DID IT PLAY????? HOW DID IT SOUND?????

bump

When I recently got the 2006-07 Supplement to the Piano Book, I was shocked to see the small price differential between the two sizes of Walter grands. Of course, this may not translate precisely into the dealer prices, but my thoughts were why would anyone buy the smaller model if the much larger one is only around $1000 more?

Usually for this difference in size in a high quality grand the price differential would be much greater.

Someone might well buy the smaller piano for a number of reasons other than size, all of which have to do with sound and playability, which are much more complex considerations than any sort of simplistic notion regarding the desirability of a certain piano size.

The smaller piano is a different design. Clearly, the cost to build the smaller piano is not much, if at all, different.

Without question, the difference in materials, and for that matter, probably labor is not much different. However, turn the size question around, and ask this: Why is a larger piano more expensive than the smaller one?

Probably because it can be.

1) Size: The 175 is designed to fit into a smaller space. It is not just 150 mm (about 6") shorter, it is also 25 mm narrower.

2) Voice: The string scale and the soundboard/rib scale are both enough different that the piano will have a different sound.

The larger piano will cost a bit more because there are simply more materials involved. The plate is cast using a slightly different process (because of its size) and is, therefore, more costly. There is more material in the rim. The soundboard is bigger and more costly. There is somewhat more labor involved just because the larger components are more difficult -- slower -- to handle.

As you can see from the rather modest price differential, however, these differences are not great.

Del

Of course! Manufacturers are likely to set prices in the direction of whatever the market will bear, independent of cost.

It may be that some large, low production, pianos in a manufacturer's lineup may have very low margins and other, smaller pianos may be produced in much higher numbers so that the costs of construction are more affected by cost of labor inputs than materials.

I hope that Walter does well with the new piano, in every way!

Even though I saw several 175s in the factory in various stages of being built, there wasn't one finished and in the showroom for me to play.

Bill

My feeling is that there are very few rooms(unless they are overloaded with furniture) where a 6'4" piano won't fit if the room can fit a 5'10" piano. And with a 6" difference I would assume the bass would have to be better in the larger model.

This depends on your perspective, I think. And on just how much the decorator in your family is willing to put up with to accommodate your musical aspirations. Unless you are one and the same. Many musical compromises are made to accommodate not just the physical size of some piano in a given space, but also it’s visual bulk (not necessarily the same thing) in the eyes of the non-musician. I tried to make the Model 175 look somewhat less imposing as well as shortening it up by six inches.

There are also differences in timbre, or voice. A smaller piano really should be designed with a voice more suitable to a smaller room.

Del

What a ridiculous statement.

Why is that a ridiculous statement?

Dale

It's a statement that someone involved in the industry should not make unqualified.

There is no evidence that these pianos will "outperform just about any other piano of its size". Just a dealers statement that, regardless of accuracy, if left unchallenged can carry a lot of weight around here.

I challenged it here and on Larry's board. Over on Larry's board, Cy said he has not even played one yet. So, tell me, how can one make a statement like that without seeing and playing the piano first hand?

One would have to conduct a piano "shoot out" as it were and assemble, prep and have competent, independent pianists and technicians conduct the shootout.

There is measurable data like sustain and action weight and response but mostly we would still be talking about opinions.

We have one member who actually played one.

I quote:

"Playability...I think it has a Renner (or Renner Parts) action, and it showed. The piano was light, responsive, and although I've been playing my crappy digital Casio for the last 4 days, it took not much time to accomodate my touch to this piano. It was everything you'd expect from a world-class action maker, and Walter did a nice job putting it into their piano.

Tone...

sigh...

As I said, I really, really wanted to like this piano.

But I didn't.

The tone was a bit too percussive, too harsh - as I told the salesperson, too "Asian." It reminded me of a C3, though it played nicer. It just sounded like one. She agreed with me, and said that's what she didn't like about it either. I don't know if it was a matter of voicing in a new piano, but I can just imagine what it would sound like in a year or so. "

Opinions matter yes, but spin is spin.

It would have been better if Cy would have reworded his statement to say something like, "In my opinion these pianos will compete favorably with any other piano of like size".

To make a blanket statement that they should out-perform the others is spin.

Just to give Cy the benefit of the doubt: according to his website he is a technician and does not sell pianos.

Now as to whether it will outperform a 1920 Mason & Hamlin A in perfect condition...

Let me amend my blanket statement, as I also complain about similar generalizations such as "all Asian pianos", "all Baldwins", and so on. I can see that an opinion asserted without actual experience can be fairly called "spin". Keep me honest!

Based on the classes I've taken from Del, his empirical research into actual soundboard performance (nodal analysis), and my experience with several of his designs in pianos such as the Fandrich Vertical, in my subjective opinion, without ever having played one, is that the non-traditional design features of the Walters 175 (such as the floating bass, aggressive cutoff bars, tenor bridge root extension, eight nosebolts, non-uniform ribs, and half-agraffes in the capo bar) should result in a piano that has a clearer bass, smoother bass-tenor break, and better sustain in the killer octave than similarly sized pianos of traditional design.

I may very well be wrong.

--Cy--

I guess it's like betting on a Hollywood blobkbuster producer/director to produce another blockbuster. Sometimes, you get Coppola who produced Godfater III after Godfather I and II. Some other times, you get Kevin Costner who followed-up Dances With Wolves with Waterworld. Some other times still, you get somebody like George Lucas who produced Star Wars Episodes IV, V, VI, and still manage to underwhelm you with Jar Jar Bing in Episode I. Heck, even Coca-Cola could screw up with their "new Coke" after half a century of success with a proven old formula. I suppose it's best for a critique to hold off critiqing until the product in question has been reviewed in the flesh.

I'm glad you included the emoticons, Ax. The mass market and highly-focused niche markets are not at all the same thing.

I do think Cy has a good and critical point that Del's piano design criteria are very sharply focused and probably quite different from those which underlie the production of most pianos, of whatever quality level.

There are no doubt lots of piano consumers who would not want, or would not be able to recognize, the qualities of an instrument with a specific design focus.

It will be interesting to hear from people who do get to try the CW 175.

It is also significant, I think, that despite the high level of satisfaction of owners of CW 190s, there are very few owners of this model piano on PW.

I have to confess to an error on my part: I didn't do the math on just how big a 175cm piano is (even though George said it was 5'10" in his post). I had a smaller piano in mind.

I was just at Del's most recent presentation, where he covered in detail the design of a five-footer, a significant challenge. I've heard very few pianos of this size that I admire. I think it's in this realm that Del's refinements really beat the norm. I've spent a lot of time recently with new 4'8" grands, barely longer than they are wide, and they are not outstanding performers.

Certainly there are many fine designs in the 5'10" range. I should have been alerted to that by George's mention of Masons and Estonias.

Mea culpa!

--Cy--

There is some variability in this as yet. I expect they will become somewhat more consistent as time goes on. Right now the samples I've worked on are brighter than I'd like them to be as well. On my last trip to the factory they were just putting on the first sets of Ronsen/Wurzen hammers and the pianos (albeit unvoiced) had a less percussive sound. Finding the right voice for the final product is something the company is working on.

Del

In part I suspect this might be due to their relatively low production figures. There are very few owners of this model anywhere.

Del

I'm one of the two on here who have played one. It should be noted that it is a very new product. Time will tell, but there is every reason to have confidence in a very fine company.

Hear Hear!

Absolutely!