Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum FYI. Hailun Soundboard answer...

Yes Ginster6. We offer three different types of hammer head depending on the customer's ideals, different key spec and lots of prep, custom voicing and regulating.

We will be video recording the 168 and 180 next weekend as we only received these models end of August. Thereafter they will be featured on our website as per our other models.

The 178, as you rightly say, being 10cm longer, does have a better overall bass than the 168, but the 168, especially after our hammer work and prepping produces one of the creamiest sounds I've heard in a grand at this price point. The very low bass on the 168 however, is very warm, pure and deep.

I've not experienced the 'thin' sound you mentioned on the 178 and I would attribute any tonal thinness to lack of dealer prepping and certainly not because of a veneered soundboard which I have no problem with at all.

So if there is a comparison, I mean, under the same prep and without considering the bass deepness, 178 and 168, which do you think has a better tone quality and is more attractive to its audience? Do the solid soundboard, able hammers, new ion plate and other new designs make huge differences in the sound?

Now I see what an important prep work is a must for pianos made under Chinese mass-production line...

The pianos sounded like garbage when I got them out of the crates. I couldn't believe how bad they were. I went about regulating, pounding the action and strings in, reregulating, tuning and tuning and tuning, then regulating some more and finally voicing.

I was quite surprised at what left my shop. They were downright respectable pianos anyone would be happy to own for the price.

This is, of course, the definition of a laminated panel. I’m not sure what you mean by the following:


ddf

If you happen to be at a lumber yard, check the edge of its top grade of plywood to count the number of thin layers of equal width that are laid across each other. You won't find anything resembling a substantial solid core sandwiched between two thin skins.

Hailun is stating they are NOT using multi-layer wood.

Depends on the model.

Some use Strunz soundboards

Some don't

Some use custom soundboard made from Austrian Spruce

Depends

One thing though - they all sound great. So who gives a rat's a**

I don't think it's pointless, but maybe it's futile because you can't isolate the soundboard difference in Hailun models as the sole characteristic that differentiates them. They are of course of different lengths with different scale designs, and as their retailaers will occasionally point out -- different guest designers.

Even if we largely eliminate the length difference by comparing the 180 to the 178, we're still stuck with the fact that each one has a different plate design (among other variables). So, I'll grant you that it's a bit futile to nail anything down.

My own subjective impressions are that the 161 and the 178 have the same musical character and that while it's pleasant, it's not a distinctive or memorable character. I've always felt (from 2007 actually) that those two were good pianos for the asking price through, meniscus or no meniscus. My impression of the 218 is that it is distinctive, memorable, and just a very fine piano period.

I wasn't throwing a bucket of cold water at Hailun, although I do find their dodge of the term laminate particularly amusing and creative. My point was that only a maker who embraces laminate technology in a way that does not obscure it and takes the risk of putting it to use in some of its more expensive models can do much to advance the cause of laminate boards among people who have been trained by industry marketing for decades to worship the solid spruce board.

...My point was that only a maker who embraces laminate technology in a way that does not obscure it and takes the risk of putting it to use in some of its more expensive models can do much to advance the cause of laminate boards among people who have been trained by industry marketing for decades to worship the solid spruce board.

If this is indeed true then it is incorrect - they clearly not stating fact.

I finally got call back.. from Hailun, China. did not talk the Mr. Chen. but another person in there.

Hailun 178 and under..
solid spruce core, veneer top and bottom.

hailun 198 and over..
solid spruce all the way.

reason for this. 178 and under usually purchase for home. so they veneer it so it was be used all over the world and soundboard will not crack or deform, from weather issues. (longer lasting).
note... it is not multi-layer wood compress together (laminated) .